Kintsugi

[Raffe]

Raffe was content with the distraction. The space was small enough that he’d had to hunch to squeeze in, but once sat down it didn’t matter much. Morgan was a talker and chatted away with carefree aplomb. It tickled a small smile to his lips, though his thoughts kept slipping away too, away to a place he couldn’t quite capture. Not that he chased too hard. It felt like he wouldn’t like the answers he found.

“Real pretty,” he agreed as she showed off the next in a long line of treasures. Then her attention whipped up, and her quieter sister exploded at Nox’s entrance. Talk of family was like an uncomfortable stab in his chest, though Kallisti had always been that, and he knew without considering it that he’d offer to help look after the girls for as long as they were with them. The rest he tried not to linger on.

Still, he couldn’t quite fault the little one’s venom. For a moment his eyes bounced away, though he felt ashamed for it. His attention returned in time to meet Nox’s words, which he knew were meant for him too. He looked back down soon after, to where Morgan was still handing him stones and explaining animatedly what they were and where she had found them. “I’ll show you my plants when we get back,” he told her. “Maybe you could help me look after them. They like stories. I think you’d be good at that.” If Nox had good news he would have shared it into the silence by now, especially given Mackenzie’s anger at him. He glanced up at her, fierce and glaring.

“We could do with you about the place, Mackenzie. Keep Nox out of trouble. And we’ll come back here regularly, keep this place clean and tidy; make sure it stays yours.”

[Nox]

Morgan giggled at the mention of Raffe's plants, she'd like those a lot. Makenzie was pouting like a baby, she didn't much like Nox on the outside. But Morgan knew that was just the hard edges she wore to protect them. She was like Mommy and Daddy all rolled into one. But now she didn't have to be. She could be Kenzie again. Though Morgan doubted things would ever go back to the way they were. "Kenz, please can we go with them. Raffe has green things we can help take care of and all those ladies are so pretty and nice, and it smelled so good there. We'd never be alone."

Makenzie looked to her sister and the scowl faded. "But..." The fiery girl sighed. "Fine, but I'm not sharing a room with him"

Nox chuckled and raised his hands in surrender. "Duckling I never ever dreamed of it. I'll find another room, or crash on the couches down stairs." Not that they were comfortable but they were clean and well cared for if not meant for sleeping. Nox didn't presume there would be space across the hall. And there were other rooms he thought, though he'd never inquired. The floor, a couch, just having a fucking roof over his head was better than most his life so he was happy either way.

"And Raffe's right, I'll be coming back everyday and we can make a trip of it if you want to come back."

Makenzie shrugged. "It's not like it means anything." She gathered all her things in her arms and stood in front of her sister. "You can't bring all the rocks. Only your favorite. We don't have that many pockets."

Nox laughed. "Tell me which ones you want and I'll bring you a pocket of them every time I come down here." It was part of his routine now, not just because of the girls.

With the girls all collected they headed back to Kallisti.

---

Nox settled the girls into his former room. He piled his things into a locker which wasn't odd that without all the weapons the entirety of his belongings save for the laptop fit neatly into the locker. That was his sad life. He had about an hour before needed to be on the floor and when he finished checking all the windows for the security weaves he found Raffe in his room.

Nox knocked softly on the door jamb, the girls across the hall were busy watching something on his laptop. Some thing silly he had no interest in but they absolutely adored, their laughter filtered out of the room and made him smile.

"Got some time to talk?" Nox dropped his gaze to the floor. "I'm willing to listen first if you have things to say. I owe you that much. But I have things I need to say and they are tearing me apart so I can't keep walking around like things are okay or pretending that there isn't something wrong. I know I said I'd give you time. And I will, but I have to say my piece and then I'll wait patiently."

[Raffe]

After the girls were settled he crashed out in his own bed again. The sleep still seemed deep and greedy, totally dreamless, and when consciousness blurred back in he lay unmoving. Time trickled by unnoticed. Raffe had been avoiding the recesses of his own thoughts for various reasons. Confrontation was not his strong-point, not least with the self-realisation waiting like squat and grinning demons in his periphery. Yet even he was beginning to realise the flat of his mood was not normal.

The voice startled him, even though there had been a soft knock preceding it. Blinking he pushed himself up. The clothes were rumpled around his form; he hadn’t undressed before passing out. The curls were likewise tousled around his serious expression as he absorbed the words spoken. “I always have time for you,” he said. There was no smile when he said it, but it was sincere.

[Nox]

Nox half smiled at the words, they were sincere yet they were unmoving, no heart strings attached and they fell flat no matter how much Nox believed them.  Could be his own expectations being unmet, or worse it was how Raffe felt -- that he was just going through the motions, saying all the things Nox wanted to hear like some rote to be read off.

Nox shook the thoughts from his head while he waited a few moments to see if Raffe had more to say.  But he didn't. They stared at each other in awkward silence for those few moments. 

Nox sighed.  He didn't know why he expected Raffe to say something now.  He didn't say anything of note when he asked him to find a place with him.  Nor when he brought up Jay before heading into the tunnels with him.  He said nothing when he confessed his indiscretion but at least he'd cried -- he'd felt something once.

Nox stepped inside Raffe's room and closed the door behind him and sat down against the door.  The rough wood biting into the spine of his back as a reminder he had things to say and not to dwell on Raffe's feelings.  Or he'd never say what he needed to say.

"I want to believe that but I'm getting so many mixed signals, you say one thing and you are just going through the motions.  I don't know whether somethings going on with you or whether or not you hate me that much you just say what I want to hear so I'll shut the fuck up.  So I'll dump the words I need to say and we can deal with all the fall out when you are ready. Cause obviously you aren't."

Nox pulled his knees up to his chest and pushed his forehead into his knees taking a long slow deep breath before he returned his gaze to Raffe's.  I can do this.

The side of Nox's lip curled in a half smile and he sighed beginning. "I know I fucked up. I won't make excuses and I'll own the mistakes and live with the consequences whatever they may be. But I never meant to hurt you and I sure as fuck didn't go down there with any intentions of cheating.  What happened happened. I know the how and why and I don't intend to ever let it happen again.  I won't be weak, I won't stop fighting this thing in my head. I know it's never going away and it's going to be a part of me for the rest of my life no matter how many of the fuckers die.  They will always be apart of me.  And that's something we'll have to deal with. Forever."

---

There was a moment of awkwardness, like Nox was waiting for him to say more. Raffe knew he owed it, but there was only silence echoing about in his skull. His brows knit at the accusation, though, and his gaze arrowed down to his own hands. “I don’t hate you,” he snapped. Like it would be that easy to wipe the past months clean over one act; like Raffe could even be so duplicitous. He accepted what had happened, but he didn’t want to think about it. Actually, he didn’t want to think about anything that made him realise how little he did feel right now. His chest caved inwards, and there was only a strange hollow space inside. How many times would the world make him relearn that life was ultimately lived alone? 
 
When he looked up he listened silently. Nox needed to get everything out as much as Raffe needed to keep everything in. So he let him speak, until he began to realise there was a feeling inside after all, and the lock he kept on it was precisely the reason he shut down. 
 
But at the word forever, it snaked painfully loose. 
 
“He came to find me, my dad. Said he was sorry, that he’d been drunk, that they had both been drunk. Just an accident. And the courts agreed with him.” The words were quiet but hard. Felt like razors in his throat. Nox wouldn’t like the comparison any more than he had before, but it’s not what Raffe meant to impart. His chest tightened. “I know you’re not him. That’s not what I’m saying.”
 
The anger stirred. Even now he clamped down on it. Pressed his hands over his hair. Wished there was somewhere to run. “I forgive you for it,” he said. “I know you’re trying. I know you’re a good person. But I don’t trust you, Nox." His expression was grim, and he didn't look up now. His breathing drew a little ragged, but it wasn't tears he hid behind the press of his hands. Neither was the anger entirely aimed at the man slumped by his door. He felt raw inside. Dancing around the shape of what was missing but unable to articulate it.

---

The same arguement he'd had before. The same comparison but it wasn't that he thought Nox was like his father more like Raffe didn't trust anyone because of him. And Nox had broken that trust. He'd caused Raffe pain. 
 
He was grateful for the forgivness. He knew that meant something but the words that ended his anger only tore Nox's soul asunder. Trust was hard to get back. He knew that. 
 
Nox nodded finally but he was fighting back the tears. He understood, and he feared this was the end of everything. 
 
"Did I ever have your trust? Is it something I can earn back?" Nox had told him from the beginning that he was an asshole. His own words causing this rift between them. Raffe never had truly given him his heart, never had that trust. Was he that wrong? 
 
Nox stood up and sighed, unable to sit still he fidgeted from one foot to the other as he spoke. "I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But if you don't trust me. If you can never trust me then is there a point to this? I've got these primal instincts in my head, tearing at my soul. I fight. I do. It's easier with you, but I'm going to fail, just like down in the tunnels. I want to fight for you, fight for this. I don't know if I'm strong enough to never given in again. To disappoint you again. I'll never have your trust with the fucking horde in my head." Which meant he was never going to have Raffe's trust. And that meant this was over. 
 
A tear streamed down Nox's cheek. Nox steeled himself for the end but he spoke one final thing from the heart. "I fucking love you. I want to marry you, buy a house, have a family. I just want a second chance Raffe. I want to be everything you want, deserve and need. But I don't think I'm ever going to be him. "

---

“Of course you had it. You had all of it, that’s the problem.” He deflated a little when he said it, realised it was one of those horrible, inescapable truths. Love rushed over Raffe’s head like drowning waves, and despite every sensible warning he’d been so swept up in it he’d cast aside all signs of danger. Even the ones Nox offered himself. Perhaps if he’d listened, put a wary cage around his own heart, he’d have been less hurt. If they’d talked about what it meant, even, for Nox to place himself into temptation, or what that promise might cost. But Raffe hadn’t questioned it. He hadn’t even worried about it. Instead he’d accepted Nox’s word faithfully, like Raffe’s own resolute trust in it was the only armour Nox needed to take down in the tunnels with him. 
 
“I don’t know the answer to that, Nox. Neither of us do. I want to.” He scrubbed his hands against his face. It wasn’t about fidelity, not really. Raffe had been in open relationships before, and he wasn’t jealous by nature. But trust was something different, even more important in those kinds of arrangements, and right now it felt like ashes in Raffe’s hands. Set ablaze by them both, and neither with the intention of watching it burn. 
 
Even now some part of him wanted to patch the cracks, like if he could make things better he should, no matter what it took from him. He heard Nox shuffle to his feet but was afraid to look up at his expression, though not quite sure if he was afraid of what it might make him do to soothe it, or what strange absence he might sense in himself. For a startling moment he was filled with an existential terror: that loss would be everything he ever knew. That this empty feeling that was in him now would just keep sucking until there was nothing of him left. 
 
He’d lost something at Paragon, he realised. 
 
His hands scraped through his hair. His eyes were raw. And he buried it somewhere deep. 
 
“It’s what you want, but is it what you need right now?” He did look up, finally. Expression honest, but hollowed out too. All he’d done since he got back was sleep, yet he didn’t look an ounce revived. And Raffe was wary of wandering back through that dream of picket fences; the kind of life neither of them had ever had growing up. By the deep longing opened up in his chest he realised it was a dream they shared, but by Nox’s own admission he finally understood it might not be a dream they could share together. “Because I don’t want to live like that. Always wondering if I’m enough. And do you really want to spend yours always fighting? Always afraid of failing? Love shouldn’t be that hard.” 
 
The words cut. Nox’s expression cut. Worst was the understanding he still loved this man. 
 
“Maybe you need to figure out who you are now, with the horde in your head. And maybe I need to figure out who I am now, too.”

---

Nox let Raffe speak -- he was finally saying things.  And the waves of those words rolled over Nox and the fury inside rose.  "Love is the only fucking thing keeping me afloat." Nox's voice was quiet, lost in the rage he didn't feel as the power wrapped around him.  The emptiness of the power kept his emotions in check.  Kept his anger in check.  Kept the fucking horde in check.  He clenched his fists and realized if he squeezed his hands any harder he would leave bruises or worse yet break his mechanical hand. 

He reached around and detached the arm and it hung limp at his side as he tried to cool the fire now burning.  "With you.  Without you I'm fighting Raffe.  Doesn't fucking matter where my heart is.  I either fight the monster inside me or I become it.  And I refuse to become him."

Nox pressed his hand to his forehead and sighed pushing the rage into an aurora borealis around them to focus his anger on something beautiful something to distract the power raging inside.  "You were my everything. I'm sorry I fucked up."  Tears fell but Nox didn't feel the pain.  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "I'll always love you." 

In a quick moment he opened the door and slipped past the threshold and looked back inside. "Have a nice life, Raffe.  I'll see you at work." 

Nox left closing the door silently behind him though he raged to slam it shut.  He looked in on the girls and told them he was going to the floor to work and he'd check on them later.

That night at the Almaz a lot of people lost some money as the show didn't pan out the way they expected.  Whatever beating Nox had been willing to take when it started ended with a man nearly dead by the end as his rage let lose and the man he fought against flew against the concrete wall with excessive force.  Nox came away with a mild concussion from the beating he took before he unleashed his anger.

And when he returned to check on the girls again, he found his bed empty.  No note, nothing.  He wondered what of their argument they heard and what Makenzie took from Raffe's all out statement of not trusting him.  She'd stayed cause of him.  Nox would stop by the church and tell Ezkeil and make sure they were tended to as he had before, but if he wasn't fit to be in a relationship he was hardly fit to be anyone's guardian.

[[ooc: with Raffe]]

[Nox]

[[ continued here for Nox ]]