( for a moment, four imagines himself gone. such is his anger with himself for asking. such is the uptic in emotion. such —
— that he tries to avoid moments like this.
stillness to put statues to shame, four watches his point of new origin remove the glove, watches his fingertips grow red and raw with a promising burn, watches the glide of them along his own palm afire with permet and the weakening constitution of its vessel. he feels it, the sting of cold cutting through the heat like a single arrow flung through the eye of a needle.
an attempt to read elan's face is as laughable as it is hopeless. four can't even see properly to begin with at this point, vision spotty in a way that reminds him of his beginnings with peil. it takes him longer than it ever would have before to withdraw his hand, shaking violently. a knee-jerk part of him suggests apologizing, while another part demands prolonged silence. still another part is too messy, makes chaos of four's neatly stored boxes of extraneous thoughts and feelings. all of the rooms of closed doors find themselves flung open, keyless and foreign even though they belong to him.
something is unraveling.
in another timeline, a witch from mercury pulls at the thread which is somehow four's labyrinth, minotaur, and way out all working against each other, the liminal space where neither fiction nor reality will do. in this one, it is elan ceres himself. the red of a dead star unwound to form a path but for what? elan ceres asked him a question. elan ceres offered him something. there are enough rote ways to reply. yet four can muster none of them.
the hand he reclaimed curls against his own chest, the room so unpleasantly full of his breathing that he wishes he could get it under control or just let go. don't notice me. it was easy to tell himself that was the most benign way to coast through this legal identity borrowing. simple. to call it a tactic rather than a personal preference. a want. four slumps forward, from crouch to all but kneeling, his other palm flat on the floor to keep himself from collapsing the rest of the way. if only elan ceres would leave.
because four will be fine.
until he's not.
it doesn't matter anyway does it?
there are others.
why he had asked and he wonders at the same time that he has no idea what elan ceres wants of him when he's been pushed to this point. would admitting that he wants...
...
...no.
even thinking it more clearly would be too much.
once, four's hair was longer. darker. he wore glasses. his frame was even slighter. once, four put his memory to dedicated use because physical books were nowhere to be seen in the conflict torn part of earth he came from. remembering none of this, four only knows his image as that of the man in front of him. peripheral vision shows the familiar nondescript shoes — expensive in that they are nondescript but undoubtedly made just for him, and clean. could it truly just be boredom that brought him here? is there any point in four of all "people", wondering these things?
his limbs feel impossibly heavy, and a sigh traps itself in his chest, swarmed by the strangle of other breaths vying for enough time and space to do four any good. his mind is as much a creature of passivity and habit though: if i can just wait...
until elan ceres leaves. until it's over. until.
to fight against the threat of passing out, four bites his tongue until he tastes blood, and it's true that sometimes the simplest fixes are the most effective; it works, despite its crudeness. no words come to him, but even if they did he isn't sure he could speak properly. the permet flares across his collarbone beneath the uniform, spreads up his neck and blooms in his cheeks.
when the roiling nausea from before resurges, it's instinct to curl on the floor with his head tucked, bare hand shoved against his mouth. his body convulses, a slender grotesqueness that seems as disgusting as it is practiced; the controlled sickness of someone who has done this before, and after four swallows, he gasps against his own palm. the heat of it matches with how it grows everywhere else, and there's no relief for managing to not vomit all over elan ceres' shoes or well pressed pants. even if four were completely alone, he would have held it in.
because...
...?
he shivers, head cloudy.
subtle: the permet in his hand is a touch less bright.
less subtle: his breaths still too loud and too fast. incongruous.
and there's the errant, automatic thought: this would probably be decent data, if he were back at peil's labs. )
no subject
— that he tries to avoid moments like this.
stillness to put statues to shame, four watches his point of new origin remove the glove, watches his fingertips grow red and raw with a promising burn, watches the glide of them along his own palm afire with permet and the weakening constitution of its vessel. he feels it, the sting of cold cutting through the heat like a single arrow flung through the eye of a needle.
an attempt to read elan's face is as laughable as it is hopeless. four can't even see properly to begin with at this point, vision spotty in a way that reminds him of his beginnings with peil. it takes him longer than it ever would have before to withdraw his hand, shaking violently. a knee-jerk part of him suggests apologizing, while another part demands prolonged silence. still another part is too messy, makes chaos of four's neatly stored boxes of extraneous thoughts and feelings. all of the rooms of closed doors find themselves flung open, keyless and foreign even though they belong to him.
something is unraveling.
in another timeline, a witch from mercury pulls at the thread which is somehow four's labyrinth, minotaur, and way out all working against each other, the liminal space where neither fiction nor reality will do. in this one, it is elan ceres himself. the red of a dead star unwound to form a path but for what? elan ceres asked him a question. elan ceres offered him something. there are enough rote ways to reply. yet four can muster none of them.
the hand he reclaimed curls against his own chest, the room so unpleasantly full of his breathing that he wishes he could get it under control or just let go. don't notice me. it was easy to tell himself that was the most benign way to coast through this legal identity borrowing. simple. to call it a tactic rather than a personal preference. a want. four slumps forward, from crouch to all but kneeling, his other palm flat on the floor to keep himself from collapsing the rest of the way. if only elan ceres would leave.
because four will be fine.
until he's not.
it doesn't matter anyway does it?
there are others.
why he had asked and he wonders at the same time that he has no idea what elan ceres wants of him when he's been pushed to this point. would admitting that he wants...
...
...no.
even thinking it more clearly would be too much.
once, four's hair was longer. darker. he wore glasses. his frame was even slighter. once, four put his memory to dedicated use because physical books were nowhere to be seen in the conflict torn part of earth he came from. remembering none of this, four only knows his image as that of the man in front of him. peripheral vision shows the familiar nondescript shoes — expensive in that they are nondescript but undoubtedly made just for him, and clean. could it truly just be boredom that brought him here? is there any point in four of all "people", wondering these things?
his limbs feel impossibly heavy, and a sigh traps itself in his chest, swarmed by the strangle of other breaths vying for enough time and space to do four any good. his mind is as much a creature of passivity and habit though: if i can just wait...
until elan ceres leaves. until it's over. until.
to fight against the threat of passing out, four bites his tongue until he tastes blood, and it's true that sometimes the simplest fixes are the most effective; it works, despite its crudeness. no words come to him, but even if they did he isn't sure he could speak properly. the permet flares across his collarbone beneath the uniform, spreads up his neck and blooms in his cheeks.
when the roiling nausea from before resurges, it's instinct to curl on the floor with his head tucked, bare hand shoved against his mouth. his body convulses, a slender grotesqueness that seems as disgusting as it is practiced; the controlled sickness of someone who has done this before, and after four swallows, he gasps against his own palm. the heat of it matches with how it grows everywhere else, and there's no relief for managing to not vomit all over elan ceres' shoes or well pressed pants. even if four were completely alone, he would have held it in.
because...
...?
he shivers, head cloudy.
subtle: the permet in his hand is a touch less bright.
less subtle: his breaths still too loud and too fast. incongruous.
and there's the errant, automatic thought: this would probably be decent data, if he were back at peil's labs. )