Kintsugi

[Nox]

The power flowed through my veins and I heard an echo in the distance. "Morgan!"

I dissolved the earth pillars with a flick of the mind. It was so easy to undo what I'd done. The earth settled and the other little girl, the other half of the set raced towards me full bore with her fist clenched, her face in tears and her teeth barred.

A small fist cracked me across the chin. "Ow."

The girl in my lap woke up with the sound of flesh on flesh and shifted out of my grasp with her hands up in fists. I smiled. "It's okay. I'm okay. Your sister is here."

She looked at her sister and they hugged tightly. "Kenzie. I'm sorry."

"I'll go now." I handed the bunny back to Morgan with a smile. "Thank you for letting me borrow your bunny."

I turned and walked away but the liggle girl grabbed my hand and pushed the bunny in my hand. "You need him more than I do."

"Mama gave that to you.

"I know. To help. He needs help too."

"Why don't you come with him? Sleep in a bed, under a real roof, have a hot shower, eat a real meal. All on me?"

Morgan hopped a little before looking to her sister with hope filled eyes. "And I can show you how to throw a punch so you don't hurt your hand as much."

"Fine."

Morgan giggled and thrust her hand into mine and grabbed her sisters and tugged us both towards the exit of tent city.

[Nox]

Kallisti wasn't exactly a place for kids. But it was the roof over Nox's head. It wasn't start of business but the girls and other employees would be trickling in. It would be better if none of them saw. Nox wasn't worried about getting in trouble, more about disrupting the show that was going on. Sterling always made things chaos, he imagined these two would do so much more -- specially in their tangled and disheveled states.

Nox pulled open the side door after the door moved a jar to let the latch lose. Juls looked at the trailing two and squeed. "Taking in strays? How sweet of you." She said as she ushered the girls into the back stage areas.

So much for not disrupting things. Between getting ready for their shows and pampering the girls first with showers and clean clothes, the girls took turns combing their hair, offering styling tips.

When it looked like they were overwhelmed Mae ushered them up to Nox's room where Nox had the bed turned down with clean sheets and pillows. "I think they've had enough of us for a while."

Nox looked at the twins and in clean clothes, t-shirts that were too big, tied and made to look like great dresses. Nox was never going to be able to return the girls to the refugee camp. The girls wouldn't let him and he saw him and his sister in their eyes.

Mae put her hand on his shoulder and sent the girls towards the bed with a guiding hand. "He doesn't bite. He's a real sweety. He can find someplace else to sleep."

Morgan grabbed jerked from Mae and grabbed Nox's mechanical hand and tugged him closer shaking her head. Kenzi just glared at Nox.

Mae giggled softly and shut the door behind her leaving them alone in the dim light of the red light district peaking through the shades. "I have to work down stairs, but I can stay till you fall asleep."

Morgan asked. "Can you tell us another story." She climbed into bed dragging her sister into the corner and handing Nox her fluffy bunny taking his hand and pressing it to her face.

"Sure." Nox sat on the floor and put his head against the wall and told another half truth story from Aurora and his childhood, he spoke softly until they were both sound sleep in the warmth of his clean bed and the music downstairs was just starting to blare. It would be a soft cadence here. He hoped.

[Nox]

The girls slept soundly as he closed the door behind him. He left his laptop open with a security cam feed of his position in the club so they didn't freak out. If they freaked out. There was a bit of risk leaving them alone upstairs, but there was never a shortage of people in the back while everyone did their jobs. The fluffy bunny was gritty and grime covered, totally not suitable for the clientele of Kallisti, was enough that it was a stuffed toy he was going to carry around.

He drew up on the power of the gods and pulled the dirt and grime from the little bunny giving it a through cleaning. Even the scent emanating from the bunny's zipper compartment smelled brighter and cleaner, like it had been stifled in all the stench of the underworld. The pink bunny needed an outfit fitting the burlesque. He fitted her with some of the girls extra skimpy costumes and a pair of pin on sunglasses that usually sat on one of the girls 1980s costumes.

Nox clipped the bunny to the back of his shirt with safety pins and headed into the club proper with the bunny looking over his left shoulder. An ear occasionally got in his view and he had to toss it aside like a strand of fallen hair. The girls giggled as he stood stoic against the wall watching the crowd. He was bound to get questions from the girls and other employees, but the patrons didn't seem to notice -- most of the time.

But Nox didn't care. Totally okay with the stares and giggles. This was the best he'd felt since he lost his arm. No fucking way anyone was going to ruin that for him.

[Nox]

The shift ended. Club was closed, the place was empty. Usually it was just him and Raffe left to make sure all the doors were locked and the windows closed and the place was buttoned up. He finished the rounds making sure all his extra security measures were in place. Last thing he needed was the Atharim breaking in and killing him in his sleep. Or worse blowing the joint up.

He still had nightmares about the fire -- among other things.

The calm of the horde was unique. But they gnawed at his brain still, he felt their itching and scratching and Nox knew he should go to the Alamaz and let them play, but the girls slept in his bed and he couldn't leave them alone -- not in a strange place. He'd freak out. He didn't want that for them.

Nox opened the door and their soft sounds of slumber made him smile. He sat down in the doorway and pulled on his hoodie. It had long since lost any scent of his mother or sister, but it was all he had left of either of them. With the hood up over his head and the stuffed rabbit clutched in his arms Nox shifted into a comfortable position guarding the door to his room but catching a few winks.

Sleep comes and the darkness pours in like always. And like always the darkness fills with all his nightmares. The fire having been present on his waking mind boiled in his dreams. Images of Bas flailing in the flames as they consumed his body. A failure he wasn't even present to try to stop. He hadn't even known he was in there until he read the report. Nova's charred body from the same explosion curled around his feet dripping with ooze and the stench of the horde whining and yelping as Nox picked his friend up and tossed him into the burning fire.

Images of a large black dog with red eyes stalks out of the flames and rushes towards him, only to bound over him and when Nox turns to see it's victim he freezes in cold abject horror as invisible claws rip through his mother. Her eyes are pleading for help and she reaches for him. In the distance Nox hears his father's words. 'you should have saved her.' 'you are worthless.' The words turn to hatred and slurs in his mind.

The voice steps out of the shadows and reveals the speaker. His father woulda have been seething in his own vomit spewing the horrible words, but this time, a calm looking man with shaggy curly hair and a scar across his throat rasped. 'You betrayed me.'

Nox's eyes popped open, his heart racing in his chest and covered in sweat. Tears flowed down his cheeks and he buried his face into the fluffy pink bunny to hide the tears. The sun couldn't rise fast enough. The darkness haunted him and all his failures come alive in twisted nightmares. Even sleep was torture.

[Raffe]

[[continued from Lyaeus]]

His feet led him to the church, not to home. Zeke was entertaining a gaggle of children in the crumbling, weed-sprouted courtyard, and his dark eyes glanced up in curiosity as Raffe passed, but he did not follow. Some of the women fussed when he entered the cool dark chamber inside. Raffe assumed it meant he looked like he’d dug himself up from the centre of the world, which wasn’t far off what he felt like. So when he was offered a blanket and a space to lay down, he curled up and promptly fell asleep.

By the time he woke, the slants of light from the stained glass windows were fading into dusk and dust. He ate companionably amongst the refugees, but was unusually silent despite the easy way they included him. Life felt like sleep-walking, as though he couldn’t quite work out how to rouse himself from hazy dreaming. Half-asleep or maybe half-drowning. He rubbed his face several times, considered laying back down. He didn’t feel ill, was neither burning hot nor sweating, but he’d never felt so hollowed-out exhausted. Maybe that was to be expected. Maybe Paragon had even said something about recovery expectations. He couldn’t remember. But he knew he’d nearly died. It just didn’t seem as horrific as maybe it should.

Zeke found him the steps gone midnight. Raffe accepted the joint from his fingers wordlessly, and for a while they only sat in silence. Kallisti would be in full swing by now, all glitter and tease. He should have called Carmen, but he didn’t; partly because he realised he didn’t have a phone with which to make the call, and partly because he found he did not know what to say. Though of course, there was another reason for his reluctance.

“I’m not good at dealing with problems,” he confided eventually, watching the smoke billow from his mouth. His shoulders loosened. Bury them, run from them, let them weigh heavy upon his soul. It's not like he knew how to change. Zeke looked at him from the corner of his eye. Maybe there was the hint of a smile. But he said nothing. And Raffe was good with that.

He left in the early hours. Just walked the streets like a vagrant, until he forced himself to take the familiar paths to the club. Silent by now of course, even the performers gone home. It was dark inside. Raffe poured himself a shot, downed it, and sat with another at the bar until the room lightened around him. Did it feel like home anymore? He didn’t know, and he wondered if all his feelings were just locked away somewhere behind glass, like Paragon had kept them. He’d slept away most of the day, and could still close his eyes. Maybe that was all he needed.

He didn’t know what the time was, but he didn’t need to switch on the lights to guide his way up the stairs; there was enough by now to see by. Each footstep echoed hollow and tired. His gaze barely rose, so it was only chance that landed his attention on the figure huddled in Nox’s doorway. And maybe the muffled sounds of sobbing. For an awful moment he considered just heading to his room; he wasn’t sure the other man even realised he was there at first. But he didn’t, he just stood limned in the glow of dawn.

[Nox]

The sounds of doors opening and closing pulled at Nox's periphery. The nightmares fading into the sounds of someone in the club. It was still too early for anyone but Raffe. But when the sounds didn't approach the nightmares latched on again. And Nox fell into his worst fear -- watching through the haze as he ripped those he loved apart, both dead and alive.

When the heavy sounds of footsteps fell on the stairs Nox jolted awake to the lifeless eyes of the man he loved torn apart by his hands. Nox stifled the memory and tears in the pink bunny only to look up and find his love standing in the light, alive.

Nox stood up clumsily, catching himself as he teetered forward by the door frame like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have. "Raffe." Nox's voice cracked with sleep and worry. His real fingers clenched tightly into the pink bunny that hung limply at his side. The mechanical arm lay on the floor at his side, at some point he'd remembered to remove it, though he didn't recall when, probably in between the nightmares.

"You look like you just crashed into the earth without your wings." The light giving Raffe an angelic sort of glow as he stood on the landing. He tried to make it sound light and fun but his heart was too heavy.

Was only fitting that where it fell apart was where they would see each other again. "Do you want to talk about it? I mean the reason you look like I feel and not..." Nox waved his hands unable to really say what was between them. "Unless they are the same and then..." Again waving his hands awkwardly.

He was rambling.

Nox pulled his bottom lip in and bit hard. He was resolved to let Raffe have whatever say he needed first... If any, before he rambled on about things that matter to him. He dropped his gaze to the floor, tossing the fluffy pink bunny down next to his arm and stuffed his hand in his jeans pocket fumbling for the ring.

It had become a source of comfort and focus as he pulled on the power and started idly polishing the ring one final time. He'd get through this -- even if it killed him.

[Raffe]

Nox’s voice cracked as he stood. A child’s toy dangled from his grip. For a moment Raffe only blinked, dazed. The words soaked in slowly. Maybe he was still stoned. Nox looked haggard, like he hadn’t been sleeping well. Perhaps it was just the cling of early shadows, but he wondered if he saw bruises too. But at least Nox was here; far better than the self-destruction Raffe had imagined possible when running things over endlessly in his mind. Here the Kallisti girls would have been looking after him; or trying to, at least.

He watched the toy drop to the floor. Blinked again.

“I’ve been Sick,” he said with a shrug. Indifference for the fact and not the question. Clearly he was not dead. As for the rest, he wasn’t sure he had words for it yet. A frown pressed his brow but cleared just as quickly. “Why are you sleeping in the doorway?”

[Nox]

The news shook Nox to the core. He'd known. But Sage said he'd been better when he saw him last. He looked like shit, but he was done -- over it. Where they wrong? Or had Paragon done something? Was he really sick, had his mind been playing games on the idea that he'd been Sick sick.

But Raffe didn't linger long on the answer and asked the most logical question. Nox stepped away from the door and offered the view so he could see the sleeping twins in his bed. They were sprawled out nearly on top of each other, the long shirts belted at their waist to keep the too big shirts from falling. "The girls are washing their clothes properly. They thought my cleaning with the power was wrong and some how ineffectual."

Nox pulled the ring from his pocket on the tip of a finger while he reached down and grabbed the stuffed toy and the arm. He set them inside his room and closed the door behind him as he stepped back into the hall. "Don't want to wake them. I don't think they've slept in a bed in a long while being tent city resident refugees now."

"I'm glad to see you. It's been quiet around here." Nox leaned against the wall with his hand behind his back and dropped his gaze to the floor as he admitted his feelings. "I've missed you. I know I fucked up. I know you need time and space, and I want to give you everything you need. Which is kinda the point of what I have to say, but..." Nox sighed. "Maybe you should get some sleep. I'm gonna take the girls shopping for some clothes, feed them at some sit down place and then take them to the refugee church where you took Sage, make sure no one is looking for them. I'll be back for my shift. When you feel better maybe we can talk."

[Raffe]

The last explanation he’d expected was two girls curled like kittens in Nox’s bed. He didn't ask why, didn’t need to; just accepted it as easily as that as Nox softly closed the door.

“Okay,” was all he said, scruffing a hand over his head. A shower might wake him up some, but trundling back down the stairs seemed like more effort than tumbling straight into bed. Plus turning off his brain felt like a wonderful solution for a while. He met Nox’s gaze, his own expression unusually flat. Not hostile, not angry, not upset. He was just strangely still inside, waiting for a reaction, any reaction, to reach him.

“Zeke will know if anyone’s looking for them,” he agreed. His hand fell from his head, rubbing tiredly over his face. “I’ll come with you, though. Sage might have name-dropped you, and Cruz left a bit of an impression.” Not that the church was dangerous, but he remembered Ezekiel’s reaction to the tunnels being cleared, and he didn’t want Nox to end up feeling the brunt of his ire should the man prove in a mercurial mood.

Afterwards he headed for his own door, pressed it open with a palm. His gaze bounced naturally to the plants on the windowsill as he heeled off his shoes. He didn’t look back out into the corridor, but he did speak again.

“Those girls don’t look like they’ll wake up anytime soon. And they probably need the sleep as much as you do. You might as well come in.”

[Nox]

There was no question of whether or not Raffe would take no for an answer when he said he'd go with him. There was a sort of calm about that. It didn't surprise Nox with the following words. Sage name dropping was usual. And Cruz being an entitled ass was par for the family. Entitled was only the beginning when it came to the male Vegas. But Nox was grateful for whatever interference Raffe could run on his behalf. That he'd offer to do that for him only gave him hope.

Nox watched Raffe go into his room. And those word hung in the hall. "You might as well come in." Nox blinked unmoving but watching Raffe's reaction to his own invite. "I watered your plants. Hopefully I didn't do it wrong." Nox padded barefoot just into Raffe's doorway. "I..."

They had shared a bed before they had any physical relationship. Nox told himself that. This wasn't different than before. Nox pulled his hoodie off the best he could with only the use of one hand. "I appreciate this. Appreciate your help with Zeke, too."

Nox followed Raffe's lead when it came to sleeping arrangements. And when they were both lying down it was a little awkward. Nox remembered the ring on the tip of his finger. He held his hand up and flicked the ring up between his thumb and index finger. "I made this for you. Didn't start out a ring. I just started fiddling with the rock I found thinking about you." Nox offered it to Raffe. "There are no flaws. Should never break without a lot of pressure and force. Figure it's the only promise I can never break." On the inside Nox had etched. 'I love you, always.'