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heirbane · 4 months

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4. Five times touched... 🐺🐇 :>

touched. / @daizure

Maybe he was trying to drown. The more he lost, the more glass bottles and thin, fluted glasses graced his lips, sweet and bitter, tolerable and horrid all at once. It helped him sleep. It helped his mind quiet, no longer as loud as the crashing waves against the cliff sides but more akin to the lull against shore, gentle and creeping until he couldn't remember what had plagued him.

Once, he would have thrown himself into his work. Once, Gaius would have donned weighted fatigues and pulled soldiers out of their platoons, running drills and sparring until his heart thrummed in his ears.

He was lost at sea now, without the capacity to run himself until oblivion as he once had. Now he simply had to wait to drown.

He reached out, intending to finish the last of the bottle, the firelight crackling with laughter ahead of him. How he had fallen, it chortled. He had hit the ground and continued unto hell.

When would it stop?

Smooth leather met his fingertips. Gaius felt himself flinch, an action pulled from the depths of his inebriated instincts, and turned his citrine gaze to the man who had crouched beside him.

For a moment, they stayed still. Arye scant looked his way, his smaller hand still gripping around the bottle with such might that Gaius believed he was simply laying claim. He let out a long exhale.

"As you wish."

Arye wrenched the bottle from him. In a swift movement, the man stood, and all at once Gaius watched as the bottle went flying. It collided with the firewood, glass shattering, and what remained of the spirits went up in flames, the fire grateful for the offering.

It continued to laugh, tendrils of heat reaching for the sky, begging for more. That was all it could do.

He wondered when Allie took up collecting.

The barracks of Garlemald's soldiers had always wanted for decor in a way that was intentional. Soldiers weren't to want, nor to have desires: they were to fight, and such things as trinkets and favored items were frowned upon. Humanity made them weak, Solus had believed.

It was a habit that carried into Terncliff, malms and malms from his home, years past being a proper soldier. His cottage was blank. He had bought the necessities and nothing more: his own bed had scarcely more than a single pillow and a single blanket, and, unconsciously, he had forced the same onto Allie.

But it seemed with each passing day that a Moogle graced his doorstep that the house became fuller. At first he had believed it to be his daughter's doings, visiting the market and buying trinkets with her own coin or combing the beach for shells and glass. Lidded jars sat in the windows, frosted seaglass positively glowing in the sunlight; sea shells of all sizes and variety appeared atop the fireplace mantle and on the washroom counter.

That was, until he appeared in a Moogle's place.

Gaius had scarcely felt as dumb in his life as he felt in that moment, fried eggs sizzling in the kitchen and his hair scarcely combed, when he opened his front door and peered down at a white-furred being that decidedly did not say "Kupo".

"Is Allie afoot?"

He paused. He looked over his shoulder, full knowing she wasn't, and spoke:

"No, she's - ... on a date. Brunch."

Arye had pushed past him, as if searching for the teen on his own. When Gaius' words sank in, however, his ears twitched, swiveling his attention to the Garlean.

"Oh."

The eggs sizzled, scorching in their pan. Gaius attempted,

"You could stay, and - "

"No."

He thrust out his armful. Gaius had been so preoccupied by his being that he didn't notice the overflowing blanket that had been carefully folded and held with care. Now, Arye seemed as if the item disgusted him, boots heavy on the stone flooring as he went to take his leave.

"For her. It was too heavy for the Moogles to take from Yanxia," he said curtly. "I'll - be back. When she's around."

Arye fled, the heavy wooden door slamming shut in his wake. Gaius stood, thumb stroking over the intricate weave in the karakul wool.

Huh. Mayhaps it hadn't entirely been Allie's doing...

"Get up. Get up, damn you."

The townfolk that had seen the Blasphemy had claimed it to sound human, that the wicked sound had put a pit in their stomach. As the world began to fall apart, they barely knew what to do with themselves. Once, Garlemald had helped build their seaside home, encouraging trade and advancements in farming. Once, Gaius had walked the stonework and looked for weak points to patch and mend.

He had been trustworthy once, the eldest of them remembered. And so they had come to the old wolf with a chance to redeem himself: not as a Garlean, and not as a Legatus, but as Gaius Baelsar.

He would not tell them no.

He wished he could have.

It was a Weapon. It was half-human and half-machine, sinew replaced with tubing. When it opened it's maw, lined with rotting, steel teeth, it was to jeer at them all. Gaius felt as if he had departed from his own body, his gunblade foreign in his hand.

It unleashed a sound that nigh echoed Valen's laughter, wet and poisonous and rancid.

Gaius didn't remember giving orders. He didn't remember being in his own skin, flooded with recollections of his children as their souls were torn from their aether, as they fused with the machina they piloted. It defied nature. It defied science.

Maybe he hadn't done a thing at all. All at once he was startled awake, gasping for air in a way that felt as if his lungs were on fire. Arye appeared above him, positively blocking out the sun and wearing it's rays as a halo against his locks. He heard Allie weeping not far away.

When had he gotten here? How had he the time to save the world and such a place as this? Had the rest of the realm begged him for assistance, too?

Arye's bare hand fisted the front of his armor. It had been the best the Werlytans could scrounge up, padded cotton and hemp, leather reinforcements for those who stood at the front line. He yanked, forcing Gaius into a seated position even as the world swam.

Allie stared at him. Arye cursed. He felt the man's palm against his back and under his ribs, the action ripping a sound from him that felt black and horrid.

Maybe he was getting to die here, he wondered. After it all. Maybe he would get peace after all.

He could breathe. They were small, shallow things, his subconscious more aware of his plight than he. It was dark and drizzling, the moon but a sliver in the sky as it peered through his window shyly.

He had not died. He had yet to feel relieved in that fact: Gaius simply felt old and haggard, beaten unto oblivion and drug back to the shores of the living. Maybe his age had finally caught up with his spirit.

He heard a wheezy sigh at his side, and then the throaty inhale of someone who had their nose broken too many times. He became aware of the sheer number of people asleep in the dark: the chair to his study had been brought in, as well as the rocking chair from the living room. He felt Allie's small hand in his own, even as she slept turned away from him, a pillow carefully dividing them - her attempt to keep from hurting him in her sleep.

Valdeaulin snored. His feet sagged the mattress where he slouched, his chair at the foot of the bed. When Gaius turned his head, he saw moon-white hair curling on his pillow. Arye had claimed the study chair, contorted in such a way that looked uncomfortable, his forehead on his arm and his hand outstretched in his direction. His fingertips just barely brushed Gaius' sleeping shirt.

He had not died. He felt old and exhausted, weary and threadbare, but his throat was thick and he found it harder to breathe than before. He squeezed Allie's hand, and slowly - uncertainly, unaware of the full extent of his wounds - placed his other beneath Arye's.

He brought their intertwined hands to his lips. The moon watched as he wept.

Gaius had learned far more about the Scions and their small spats than he ever believed he could. Had he been but half a decade younger, he wondered what this information would have done for him in Garlemald.

Perhaps not as much as he wished, he mused. The Lalafell's blackmail attempts aside, they were fairly moot points; the rogue and the celestial mage had not been intermingled until recently, so it would not have been useful then. The witch's shift in aethersight was a boon, despite it's challenges, and the dragoon's fondness for Thavnair was expected. That bit of information was one he already knew - they had crossed paths more than once after their excursion to Garlemald.

But the Warrior of Light was a storyteller, and he would not turn down the chance to hear Allie laugh... even if it meant his daughter telling stories of her own.

(He pretended he hadn't heard her mention kissing the girl she was dating, or that she had trailed off and laughed in a way that he hadn't ever heard, that both were lost under the popping of bacon and popotos.)

Arye appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. His mug was empty, and he gingerly put the tea bag in the trash. With a familiar ease, he dug into the cabinetry, fishing out cutlery and plates for all three of them.

"She hadn't told me she was that involved with her," Gaius grumbled. He heard the man snort, his hip colliding with the Garlean's thigh as they stood side-by-side.

"Maybe you'd know about her if you invited her for breakfast instead of just me," Arye spoke.

It was Gaius' turn to huff, defensive and dismissive all at once. He watched the rabbit's ears swivel, mischievous and coy, as he laid claim to two of the finished plates and disappeared back into to the table Allie sat at.

He was right. Somehow, he usually was. Gaius ran a hand over his face, picking up his plate in one hand and his walking cane in another, and made to join them both.

#ⅩⅣ loqui ( asks. )#ⅩⅣ responsa ( answers.)#ⅩⅣ cara lepus / cari lupum ( a/g. )#5.0 spoilers #6.0 spoilers #here i go preemtively tagging things im thinking abt even if they dont make it in. in the weird chance yall can read my mind or something #alcohol tw #loss tw #grief tw #mental illness tw #tried to be story chronological but don't look too hard #weapon series -> patch content -> e.nd of end.walkerish -> patch content maybe #war tw #wounds tw #death ideation tw #suicide ideation tw

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