[ It’s a strange thing to stand waiting for the axe to fall, for the test to come. Sometimes, Carver can’t hold still—this, he knows, is his greatest sin. When he cannot settle regardless of cost, his own racing thoughts too loud and too brittle to contend with, and the world narrows down to a singular focus. Not always the proper one. These things happen.
He waits in silence. Unconsciously, he moves to stand at attention. These things happen. Why not play the game out all the way to the end? Cy’s got a handsome face, the sort of broad shoulders Carver used to linger on back in the days he allowed himself to look at other people like that. It’s just a moment. Bit of exercise, bit of endorphins to make it interesting. Could be fun, right? Could cut the noise in his head down a notch or two. Could, could, could. He holds and he waits and that thought spirals, knots into new shapes.
And then, a little while later, Cy comes back like he never left in the first place, like this is easy. Like people still touch each other without pain. Like this didn’t start with a knife through the eye. It didn’t take but that’s not the point. We own what we do, son, Pope hisses in his ear. And you lost.
There are consequences to that, always. He barely hears the question, but he goes where he’s tugged.
Sometimes, things blur a little. Go fuzzy around the corners. The last person he fucked was that scavenger couple on the road, the man with the bow and the woman with the axe. How many years ago was that?
Carver blinks. Realizes he never knew those names. Never bothered to ask. Realizes, too, that the last time he touched someone like this was when he was reeling and crazy out on the road: when he lost pieces of himself to the grief because you cannot lose that much in one go and not sunder fractions of your soul in the process.
There was a question. Carver half heard it. ]
These things happen, [ he tells the ghost standing beyond Cy’s shoulder, the one that looks like Shaw: the one that looks worried. He doesn’t remember how to touch a stranger without hurting them: that’s probably a bad thing. That’s probably something he sacrificed. ] You’re the god of war, aren’t you?
cw: dissociation, hallucinations, so much cult shit
He waits in silence. Unconsciously, he moves to stand at attention. These things happen. Why not play the game out all the way to the end? Cy’s got a handsome face, the sort of broad shoulders Carver used to linger on back in the days he allowed himself to look at other people like that. It’s just a moment. Bit of exercise, bit of endorphins to make it interesting. Could be fun, right? Could cut the noise in his head down a notch or two. Could, could, could. He holds and he waits and that thought spirals, knots into new shapes.
And then, a little while later, Cy comes back like he never left in the first place, like this is easy. Like people still touch each other without pain. Like this didn’t start with a knife through the eye. It didn’t take but that’s not the point. We own what we do, son, Pope hisses in his ear. And you lost.
There are consequences to that, always. He barely hears the question, but he goes where he’s tugged.
Sometimes, things blur a little. Go fuzzy around the corners. The last person he fucked was that scavenger couple on the road, the man with the bow and the woman with the axe. How many years ago was that?
Carver blinks. Realizes he never knew those names. Never bothered to ask. Realizes, too, that the last time he touched someone like this was when he was reeling and crazy out on the road: when he lost pieces of himself to the grief because you cannot lose that much in one go and not sunder fractions of your soul in the process.
There was a question. Carver half heard it. ]
These things happen, [ he tells the ghost standing beyond Cy’s shoulder, the one that looks like Shaw: the one that looks worried. He doesn’t remember how to touch a stranger without hurting them: that’s probably a bad thing. That’s probably something he sacrificed. ] You’re the god of war, aren’t you?