2023-01-02: Dark Medicine
- Log: Dark Medicine
- Cast: Xander Lovell, Riley Arwell
- Where: Shemeber Plains
- Date: January 2, 2023
- Summary: After giving Solitaire alchemy lessons, Xander is left sapped of strength... and tumbling toward memories he typically tries to keep buried. (Takes place directly after Teacher Xander.)
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Once Xander's cleaned up from the alchemy lessons he gave, he retreats back to camp. His mantle is tossed aside and his boots kicked off barely in time before the rest of him has crawled grumpily under a pile of blankets.
It's not even dusk, but that was too many god damn minutes of pretending to be halfway human.
Not a moment later, Xander pops his arm out, pawing around for... something? His fingers squish into a certain hand stitched frog dragon, and then drags it back into his blankets with the rest of him. A new bracelet adorns Xander's wrist, visible from under the way his sleeve has tugged up in this new adventure of his: several looped cords with a few mysteriously black-as-void beads threaded through it. He makes no effort to call any attention to it. This Very Important step in the cleaning process simply Is and is not to be questioned.
But exhausted tired is a different beast than sleepy tired, and if Xander were good at falling asleep while any stripe of tired, his disposition might be more friendly. Probably not. But it wouldn't hurt.
Instead, Xander is forced to be very tired while very awake -- a familiar condition he should know how to handle better by now -- his growl of frustration muffled from under the blankets.
"Turn off the sun and if anyone shows up looking for me, kill them."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley takes a possibly slightly cruel delight in Xander's decision to crawl beneath a pile of blankets, because although he sympathizes and even feels a little guilty for pushing him to this point, it is still outrageously cute. Like, oh goodness. The hand searching around for the frog dragon?! With a sentimental bracelet of doom candy beads?? Xander, you are perfect.
At the complaint, Riley comes along and pats the blankets with no regard for what specific portion of Xander might be hidden beneath the place of his patting.
"That was a very courageous sacrifice you made, teaching her like that." Presumably the sacrifice part was of all his energy for the rest of the day. And taking on the emotional damage from memories of his father...
"I guess asking how you're doing would be a little silly at this point..."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander has become nothing but a blob of himself. It does not matter what Riley pats, for all is Xander. But statistically, it was probably his back the way he's coiled himself up.
"No," Xander protests, and he shoves an arm out -- no frog dragon, that is now greedily tucked in with him under the other arm -- palm out in protest toward Riley. "No courage. No sacrifice."
So what's all this, then? Trying not to talk about it, maybe. That emotional damage would be great not to confront. He's not confronting it. No part of him is thinking about it.
His arm soon darts back in as Xander turtles away.
Riley does not quite ask how he's doing, but he does imply it enough for Xander to give an answer: a muffled, extended uuggghhhh face first into a pillow.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"Well, I thought it was brave," Riley argues. "And it was a good lesson, too. You were such a good and caring teacher...” Riley looks off dreamily into the distance at the thought of Xander’s teacherly virtues, unbothered by the fact that sharing this opinion is likely the opposite of helping. “Maybe you saved her life a couple of times between the medicine and the knowledge."
A noise of exasperation comes from beneath the blankets.
"Aww, my poor Xander," Riley says. He pets the blankets. Hmm. Yes. Xander's back, probably. No worries if it isn't, he figures. Riley considers the entirety of Xander to be pettable.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"I am none of whatever you said," Xander argues. "And wipe that look off of your face!"
Xander's head is under the blankets with the rest of him. He cannot see. He just knows.
The petting of the hostile Xander Lump seems to slowly be appeasing him, however. This has the unfortunate side effect of sapping the anger from Xander's voice in favor of something more grim.
"We don't save lives, Riley. We take them."
But it wasn't always that way, and now the reminder is freshly raw, reopening a wound that never truly healed to begin with.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley chuckles as he is caught smiling from the tone of his voice. "Do you think I say these things about you just to torture you? I'm willing to mind meld so you can see that I believe it..."
We don't save lives, Riley. We take them.
He sobers a bit, but still his reaction is to poke the Xander lump with his finger.
"We can do both, if we want. The universe is indifferent that way."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"I do think that." Xander sits up halfway, letting the blankets slide off of his head and onto his shoulders as he looks to Riley in challenge. Whether or not he does believe that and isn't trying to goad Riley into making good on his threat is not clear from Xander's tone. Not that it usually is.
But his own expression quiets, falling with Riley's answer.
"We can't. Not really." He can't, he means, because of what he'll do when he tries in the way he knows. This is stupid. This is pointless. Xander should not be thinking about this -- these thoughts that put him in a place that will make it harder to protect Riley when he needs to.
He growls again and flops back down, rolling over so his back faces Riley.
"It doesn't matter. I'm here to save your life. That's it."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley taps himself on the head and grins at Xander. "Come on in, if you dare..." Could Xander withstand the particular Riley emotion of delighting in Xander's softness? Would he have an epiphany or some kind of identity crisis? Who knows...
We can't. Not really.
"It doesn't have to be a regular thing. Or... an attempt at penance, or anything like that. But... sometimes, if circumstances are right, I think we can. Can't we? Indirectly... or impulsively... or whatever. I think you already did with that girl."
Xander flops over away from him and says that his only goal is to save Riley's life. Riley lies down beside him and wraps his arms around him, nuzzling. "Xanderrr, I feel so cherished right now."
And... doubly in trouble for having tried to kill them so recently, probably.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander breathes out a sigh. Riley's infuriatingly correct, despite Xander feeling an intense urge to argue on principle. But what principle, exactly? He hasn't got any of those anymore. The universe is as indifferent a Riley says.
"Fine, then. Maybe I'll throw candy at someone else later." He bites it out like sarcasm, as if that's not how this whole thing started, and as if he's not conceding to permission to do it again. As long as it's not penance...
He growls as Riley cuddles like he's free of crime. "If you enjoy it so much, then don't make it difficult for at least five minutes!"
Riley is, evidently, still in trouble. Let Xander cherish! But despite all these crimes, Xander turns over to press his forehead to Riley's, squinting a glare at him within the close proximity.
"So are you going to show me or not?"
It seems Xander does dare. Does he think he's not walking into a trap, or is he too exhausted to care...?
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
The scolding is satisfyingly vague, which gives Riley cause to hope that perhaps his latest crime is beginning to recede into the abstraction of memory to blend in with his other crimes.
But then Xander does accept his challenge to go into his head and see what Riley was getting all dreamy about.
"I'm warning you, you're going to struggle with this," Riley says, still wearing a light smile. Then he begins to hum, inviting Xander to harmonize, move along, or keep time, or however he wants to synchronize.
Meanwhile, Riley focuses upon how he saw Xander in those moments -- the endearing care with which he planned his lesson, set up the little teaching stations -- including one for the girl's axe!! -- and how wholeheartedly sought to ensure that his pupil understood, even going so far as to make her a special measuring bowl when he realized she didn't know math. All of that while facing off against his own haunting memories...
So sweet and pure... with such a tender heart... that is his Xander...
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Riley being a man of many crimes should not be what helps absolve him. Unfortunately for Xander, it is.
"Don't be so sure," Xander says, because he never learns. And also because he never learns -- and because he's too tired to do much else -- he closes his eye and hums along with Riley's tune. It's a lower sound, almost broken at times, as if Xander's dipping in and out of strength (was socializing with someone really that taxing?! yes). But it still works.
And it may be this relaxation Xander was seeking when he took up the challenge: the way his bones seem to go liquid, and the world gets to fade entirely away, and he doesn't have to trust against murder attempts that Riley still wants his company because Xander can feel it. His feelings go still and quiet, settled with a sense of comfort.
...For a sheltering moment before Riley is a menace.
Predictably, Xander struggles, red in the face and smooshing his hands against Riley's mouth as if that will shut him up. First for all, Xander is very easy to move. Second of all... Riley's thoughts aren't coming from his mouth!!
"If I did it wrong she'd have just kept bothering us! And that axe is alive! And when am I not haunted--!"
There's a surge of disbelief. Not accusing or distrusting, but baffled. How does Riley ever come to these conclusions! Yet who has time to dwell on confusion when Xander's emotional landscape flusters into an incoherent tangle of too much at once in the spiritual equivalent of sputtering.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Unfortunately, Xander's flustering and panic is also cute and sweet and endearing to Riley, and so he has to contend with being surrounded by those thoughts as soon as he starts trying to silence Riley.
At least his hands over Riley's face are muffling the laughter a little.
"I told you," he says, as best he can.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"No! What? No! What's wrong with you?!" Xander does not have to speak his horrors allowed for Riley to feel every prickly, panicked protest. Somewhere in the mess are questions about whether Riley sustained permanent damage from something he ate or that one time he got a concussion back in their Cereza adventures.
Being reminded he was told so only makes Xander growl. For all the rage in his face, the resonance does not lie. Xander is still floundering to get a grip on some emotion to stabilize himself with to react.
It's a familiar storm of indignance. One Riley felt once before Xander snapped off their resonance in distress, only to later claim he was experiencing happiness. Looking deeper into the details doesn't reveal that in the mess. More panic. Defiance. Dismay and agitation and embarrassment, all of it at war with itself.
But taking a step back paints a simpler reality: the attachment and affection necessary to fuel such fervor.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"Ehehehe... it's not brain damage, Xander, I've always felt this way!"
There are many delightful layers of Xander's distress at being found cute to explore -- layers that Riley probably should not be enjoying so shamelessly, but he grants himself permission because it's a very silly thing to be distressed over, and probably harmless. Maybe it is even good for him to confront the truth of his sweetness, even if he's currently scratching at it like a cat.
But Riley can at least be vindicated to find, lying beneath all of the spiritual sputtering, a foundation of love.
"I'm feeling cherished again," Riley taunts happily.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"You should always feel cherished!" Xander snaps back with a rage that does not match his soul or the words he physically spoke. Riley should feel threatened! Why isn't he threatened!!
There is a tragic flicker of grief within the tangle. For all of Riley's praise and teasing, none of it sticks to his soul. A cold, hostile self-perception remains, and as it bubbles to the forefront, Xander's emotional flailing loses some of its steam. Not that he isn't grateful. Is that greedy? To hell with it, Xander doesn't care if he is. He's already spilt blood over it. But for Riley to see any softness left is absurd.
He bunches his fists against Riley's shirt, refusing to look him in the eye. He withdraws in on himself, and with it, may well withdraw from the resonance while that dangerous greed of his lingers.
"...And you think I'm ridiculous," he bites out just above a mumble.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Angrily telling Riley to feel cherished while wondering why he isn't feeling more threatened is no way to get Riley to stop laughing delightedly.
But then that pang of Xander's grief hits him, and his heart drops. He wants to reach out and soothe it, but the connection doesn't go that far; Xander can only feel him wanting it.
He has to settle for reaching out to the physical Xander instead, pulling him closer.
"I'm the only one of us who sees things clearly," he insists.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The more Riley laughs, the more Xander is caught stuck staring at him, face redder by the moment.
But grief clings to Xander like stubborn weeds in everything they do. Always a new one sprouting up. He hesitates internally, but physically doesn't try to shove Riley away. For a moment, he lets himself settle -- he is tired. Teaching was a lot...!
...
Xander cracks his eye back open and peers up at Riley. "I only lost my depth perception, not visual clarity."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
There's a sad murmur of sympathy from Riley for the pain Xander won't express, but that he can still feel the receding shadow of as their resonance dwindles. He strokes the back of Xander's head.
"I mean emotional clarity."
It's true as far as things like this are concerned. And yet even Riley feels strange claiming to be the sane one.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Because it is strange. Xander's eye narrows further.
"No you don't, because you cannot possibly expect me to believe that."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Which one of them is seeing clearly... (or do they both have different distortions?)
"I.. have no idea how to prove it," Riley admits, with some chagrin. "But I think we can both agree that my version of the world is more fun."
Except... for the murder...
Riley smiles a hopeful smile at Xander, wondering if maybe he will forget that part just this once if he can be properly distracted.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander's glare narrows even further, a surprising event given how hardened the glare already was.
There's dozens of examples Xander could rant about to prove he's right, but even at his most agitated, Xander knows deep in his heart where Riley is coming from. Including the murder.
Much as Xander hates to admit it.
But. There are still some things that escape all reason.
"You didn't think I was in love with you this entire god damn time!" he snaps. "I pretended to be married to you! On the moon!"
Does the moon make it more intense...?
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
You didn't think I was in love with you this entire god damn time!
Riley's eyes widen, this accusation hitting him like a sack of bricks. An angle he truly had not considered.
"That's... true... ... could I still be deluded? Could there be other... wonderful things in your heart I am not yet aware of???"
This has gone in perhaps a different direction than Xander intended, but at least it didn't take the wind out of Riley's sails.
“Xander!! Tell me all your secrets!!”
He’s tired, Riley!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
There it is, that brief moment of victory where Xander has won. Riley! Emotional clarity! After all of that?! How could he think --
Could there be other... wonderful things in your heart I am not yet aware of???
Wait, no.
What's happening.
Xander squirms in Riley's grasp like he were trying to escape but has no where to go. Also, he is tired. Too tired for a real retreat.
"They're not secrets if I don't have them on purpose! How am I supposed to know what you don't know?!"
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
How am I supposed to know what you don't know?!
"Mmmmn," Riley says. It's a good point, but he doesn't like it.
"I guess you're just going to have to tell me everything until you get around to the good stuff," Riley says.
Truly making a strong case for being the reasonable one.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"I already tell you everything!" Xander insists with increased panic.
Except demonstratively he does not. He had failed to mention his first encounter with Solitaire, but only because it hadn't annoyed him sufficiently enough then to go off about! And there were the birthday arrangements, but that's different, Riley had to know it's different...!
"You were just inside my feelings. You've already seen how wonderful my heart wasn't. That's just how it is."
Xander grunts to punctuate the finality of it, too tired to squirm and escape, and deciding to resign himself back to settling. Or is this a silent bid to make Riley comfort him for his crimes? Of which there have just been a few more. Obviously!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"I like your heart," Riley responds with petulant sincerity. If Xander is hoping for comfort, he at least gets some of that from the way that Riley returns to fondly holding and petting him in reassurance that his heart was a nice place to visit. Unfortunately, Riley's words are still full of mischief.
"Anyway, you definitely haven't told me everything. Let's start at the beginning. What's the very first thought you ever had?"
When Riley gets an idea...
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander huffs a breath at that, but he isn't able to find a come back. And doesn't want to. If Riley wants to like him, fine. That's why Xander's here at all, isn't it?
He begins to relax when he gets what he wanted without having to say anything, even if Riley's using it to communicate being wrong again. Xander is well aware...! But he opts not to complain.
Once again, it's short lived.
"My first -- what?" Xander stares openly at Riley. "Ever? In my life?!"
But with a heavy, beleaguered sigh, something in Xander relents. "Like a first memory?" He pauses, considering, his eye wandering with his thoughts. There are scattered memories for early childhood, but the true chronological order of it blurs together. His brow furrows. It wouldn't do to just pick something. It has to be as earliest as he can reasonably assume it is.
"...It was raining. Hard. 'Thundering on the roof' hard. I couldn't sleep. I don't think I wanted to? But I remember thinking... how badly I wanted to go outside and play in it. So I guess that was my first thought."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"Hmmm, yearning to commune with the water. That sounds right for you." Riley nods against him in approval.
"Was that from when you were sick?" he asks. Not that most parents would eagerly let even a healthy child go out into a thunderstorm, but Riley can't help wondering if wanting the ability and permission to romp outdoors might have been a common theme in Xander's early life.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander bristles with the accusation, no matter how correct it is and how consistent it is with the flavor of nature he's most drawn to.
He sighs again, softer this time. "... Yeah. I doubt I'd been outside in the sun much before then. I think I did sneak out once, but I don't actually recall. Just... a story my parents told."
His tone sobers. This might be dangerous territory -- especially after the lessons -- but one with a strange temptation in it. Xander has spoken of his family as little as possible since Cereza.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley isn't deliberately prompting Xander to talk about his family so much as following impulses -- surely the result of giving Xander an impossible request like 'recount all your memories' will be shining new tidbits of insight into Xander's life or an endearingly grumpy Xander refusing the task. Either way, he wins.
But even so, he does sense tension growing in Xander, and his tone becomes more cautious and gentle, at least compared to his earlier gleeful shakedown for secrets. His hand smooths across Xander's back as his voice softens.
"What happened when you snuck out? Where did you go?" He assumes Xander knows the story, even if he doesn't directly remember it.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander's eye loses focus, but doesn't go completely hollow. His mind is elsewhere, but it's not retreated completely into nothing. There's a hand there that helps keep him grounded.
He does know the story. He knows how his parents looked when they told it. Xander's tone grows distant, like he's not involved in any of this.
"Mother used to laugh when she told the story... My father looked like his soul was going to leave his body." His fingers curl in reflexively, but Xander forces his hand to relax. "I was quiet. Then I was too quiet. I put my pillows under the blanket to mimic the shape of a body. I must have thought I would be back before they noticed." He wonders where he'd ever gotten such an idea as a child.
"...Apparently, I'd gone out to play with the village kids. They found me after they heard Sorcha's wailing. At some point I collapsed and others thought it was their fault." He shrugs his shoulders even while he's lying down. "In case you wondered why everyone was reluctant to hang out with me for so long."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"Mmmn," Riley hums sympathetically. There have been crueler reasons for one child to get left out of the crowd, but that doesn't change the isolation that Xander had to go through.
"If I had been there, I would have come to your house to play with you," Riley pronounces, although he has no way of knowing if that's true. If they had met under other circumstances, would Riley have been just like the other children, avoiding him out of fear of breaking him?
Well, there's no way to confirm, so there's no reason not to indulge in the fantasy that he would have instantly sensed the magic of Xander in any circumstance.
"Instead of you telling me stories, I could've sung you songs."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
It's not that Xander didn't understand. He must have startled them. And it was kinder to be excluded out of fear and guilt than maliciousness. They didn't want to hurt him, like his parents didn't want him hurt. It was fine. He had his studies. His parents. His books. Then he had Riley.
"I know you would have," Xander says, with all the simple confidence in the world. Whether or not it would have really been true, it's too easy to imagine it. To have had Riley even sooner. That, no matter their circumstances, one would have taken care of the other's loneliness.
He sighs again. "But maybe it's for the best. Most of what I did back then was sleep and cough until my father made his breakthrough."
...
.....
.......
"...I wonder if he regret it, in the end."
There it is. The thought he refused to have. The needle trying to teach potions quietly put in his heart.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"Xander..." Riley says, pulling him closer against his chest, so Xander can hide and be held the way he often likes to when he's feeling vulnerable. Riley is not used to being shown the wounds on Xander's heart -- usually he has to guess at their shapes from seeing them indirectly.
This wound is too deep, everything about that day is too deep, and Riley's own mistakes and grief are too tangled in it all for him to have any place trying to address the pain.
But here it is, and so he rushes to try to fill it, and damn the consequences.
"Those were days his precious child spent getting strong enough to run and play and smile again. He must have been so proud, so happy to see that. There's no way he would want to erase it. I'm sure –” his voice breaks a little – this is an emotional topic for him, too, “...even if he didn't understand what was happening that day, he must have known there was something else, that you didn't want to do it. That it was some disaster from beyond you. He must have known that."
There are tears in his eyes from remembering, from wanting so badly to be able to fix it and take it back instead of paper over it with hopes that it was somehow okay, when they both know it wasn't. But the words are still the truest he's got.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander's pretending it isn't a wound. Like it's just a fact of existence. Like it's distant and foreign and far away. But it's not. It's in him, piercing and refusing to scar over. He doesn't bury himself into Riley so much as he simply lets Riley do it for him, like it doesn't count that way. Like he's not moments away from not being here at all, the way it always happens when he thinks too much on Cereza.
But Xander hears the crack in Riley's voice, and his own breath hitches, and he's suddenly deeply, painfully aware he should never have given voice to that thought at all.
"He tried to help me." So why won't he shut up? Why can he hear his own voice, far away and so small? "I thought... I could find a clue in mother's study for us... and he heard me..."
He feels himself slipping. He's already halfway gone, remembering the boy who could breathe clearly again, excited to be helpful for once, learning from his father in the clinic as he took notes on formulas and had his own little measuring tools for his smaller hands. Xander's arms wrap around Riley in turn and squeeze, one part to keep himself from fading, another part like it makes up for tearing open old wounds on either one of them. Xander can't afford to fall away like this. Every step forward is a choice. A grim, bloody choice. Cereza wasn't.
But it was a choice to walk away from it.
"...Don't listen to me," he says, voice soft so it can stay steady. It almost works to keep the edge of a tremble out. "I'm just tired."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
He tried to help me.
The picture is in Riley's mind, now. Xander, horribly wounded, with the injury Riley gave him. Bleeding and run through with thorns and still trying to help, despite everything. His appearance sparking alarm in his father. What should have happened was for Xander to have been guided gently to the clinic, his eye tended and his feelings soothed by his worried father.
And what he got instead... his body turned into the conduit for dark impulses that would take everything from him and never let him believe he didn't destroy it all himself.
Riley's grip on Xander tightens as a sob shakes him. Instead of letting Xander hide against him, he's now hiding Xander from himself as tears stream down his cheeks. "I'm sorry... It all went so wrong."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Riley, unfortunately, listens to Xander.
Xander's expression cracks again. His grip around Riley tightens further, and he's not sure where the line between being held and holding is anymore. The only mercy is Riley hiding him so well that Xander doesn't have to look up and see the face that matches the sobbing. His own throat squeezes, dry and hard, and then his eyes are hot, and --
At least Riley can't see the way the tears fall, either.
It went so, so wrong. And even now, Xander can't fix it. Death circles closer and closer.
"...I hope she remembers." It feels like a kind of giving up to say it, and like a knife straight into his heart to admit it. But Xander could live 100 years under the curse and it wouldn't change the legacy he destroyed. "Makes a lot of potions. I hope someone else picks up on it later. I hope... I don't know..."
He does know, he just doesn't know how to say it without the cracks growing too large to continue: that he hopes he leaves something behind other than death, not for himself, but for the father who poured his soul into his son, only to be repaid with murder.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
As much as Riley would like to wholeheartedly blame Valmar for the slaughter of Cereza, the particular cruelty of the way things turned out -- the town's youngest healer bringing death to the population he was meant to care for -- is not lost on Riley. And he knows Xander must feel the weight of it every day.
Xander wants his skills as a healer to live on. And couldn't they? Is that too much to ask? It's a pure and simple wish, as far as Riley is concerned. One that would make the world a little better, unlike some of what they get up to. Now that it has been divulged to Riley, he will have to protect and nurture it. Maybe there are other opportunities out there for Xander to share his skills. Or... if this was the only lesson his heart could withstand giving, maybe there will be more chances for Riley to make sure Solitaire spreads what she learned.
"She will," Riley assures with a sniff, trying to pull himself together. The response was automatic, but he searches afterward for a reason. "Her... her axe will help her."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
It's a stupid wish. But Xander can't deny having it. So small and fragile and utterly pointless. It doesn't make up for a single thing. But that's the issue: Xander isn't trying to make up for anything. These aren't things he does in atonement.
They're the things he would do if they could ever find a way to remove the curse, for no other reason than a part of him still craves it. Which he can't let himself do. Everything else hurts enough already.
At least it hurts, and he's still here instead of abandoning Riley again.
"... Yeah," Xander agrees weakly to a notion he'd pitch a fit about the absurdity of in any other less vulnerable moment.
And that gets to be reality until the curse begins to choke them again, and then it won't be potions Xander's distributing.
Dangerously, Xander lifts himself up, just enough to look over Riley, exposing his own reddened, swollen eye in the process. He knows he made Riley cry, but he sighs when he sees it, carefully reaching out to dry Riley's face with the clean inner edge of his sleeve.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Xander starts tending to Riley's tears, which makes him wince inwardly a little. Xander shouldn’t be having to comfort any of Riley’s guilty tears from wrecking Xander’s life.
"Ah... Xander, don't worry about that." It looks like Xander has been crying, too. Whether that's better or worse than holding it in, Riley couldn't say.
"I wonder if we'd be able to withstand hearing your second memory..." he jokes weakly.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"Don't be stupid," Xander counters without heat, continuing on his self given task of trying to clean up Riley's face. Or is he trying to mask a reassuring stroke with it? But of course he's going to worry about it.
The joke makes him huff a breath. There's no strength to laugh, but there's a hint of it somewhere in his eye, puffy as it is.
That spark, however dim, falters as Xander pauses, making the mistake of considering what the next memory might have been.
He pulls his hand back from tucking Riley's hair behind one ear, and with it, a coin, as if he'd plucked it from Riley's ear in the first place.
"... Probably not." Even trying to use an example without words, his voice wavers.
A sickly child, weak and bedridden most of his early life... it's impossible not to trip over memories of his parents.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley's eyes shine at the surprise introduction of the coin, though a bit of that shimmer is from emotion as he takes Xander's meaning. Xander's mother cheering him up at his bedside with coin tricks... something Xander would later do for Riley... another memory turned dark. Conflicting images mingle together in Riley's mind at the thought. How it was for Xander back then. How it should have been. How it ended instead. He gives a small flinch of refusal at that memory, too.
These are all going to be pretty painful memories for Xander, aren't they?
He takes Xander’s hand with the coin in two of his own, forming a loose cradle around it and brushing over it with his thumb.
"Was it a bad question?" he asks, softly. It was originally more of a demand than a question, but...
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander looks at Riley's hands around his own, letting his fingers relax, the coin held loosely there.
"Depends on what secrets you're looking for," Xander decides, after a moment. It's a rare cooperation. Reawoken grief and guilt saps his energy, but it's more than just that. How he'd meant it himself, beyond stalling, that he wanted to know Riley's life before their paths crossed. It's only fair that Riley gets that same window, and it only feels like Riley already had it.
But Xander really can't know what Riley doesn't know. Time is getting strangled around them, shrinking their opportunities to know one another. He'd bleed for Riley -- even from the heart.
The coin slides away from Xander's palm as he twists his grip, squeezing on one of Riley's hands with an unspoken determination. There's no reason to fade when the whole reason his life can't end is right in front of him.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"Wonderful memories," Riley repeats, though his earlier teasing glee is now replaced by a quiet remorse, his eyes downcast. Riley's coping strategy can be powerful, but largely relies on pretending that terrible day has no bearing on the now and can be chased away to some dark corner in the back of his mind. That's impossible to do when it comes to Xander's family.
Riley's grieving time largely happened during the stretch of time when Xander's mind was somewhere far away and he was alone in the aftermath. The burials, the words of apology to the dead. It felt like an ending to everything -- to his own life as well, unless, maybe, Xander would come back to him, and then maybe he could build something new. But there was no way to insulate that 'new' life completely from the horror and loss it was built on.
Once reality intrudes, it's hard to believe that it could really be okay for him to smile, even with all Xander's done to recontextualize his role in setting all this in motion.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Wonderful memories. They're supposed to be, aren't they? His parents caring for him. Entertaining him. Eventually, curing him. What it was like to be able to breathe clearly. To walk through the house without getting tired. Helping around the house. Getting lessons in the alchemy that had fascinated him so much.
He's become the kind of person who never deserved any of it. But there's a lot he still has that he doesn't deserve, either.
Xander breaths a soft huff. His free hand reaches back up to push Riley's bangs from his face and make sure his cheeks are clean of tears.
"Well, there was the time when a boy came to the clinic. He was bedridden, like I used to be. So I thought I could share what made those memories... easier." His gaze on Riley takes on a new intensity. "...That worked out pretty well for me.
Another sigh. There's almost a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Just one of them.
"But you already know that story."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
For a happier memory, Xander offers Riley his own entry into the story of his life, along with a ghost of a smile. The sight of it pulls Riley's attention back upward, to watch it flicker there.
"I do like that story very much," Riley answers. He fights a little with his own smile; it's much readier, as it always seems to be, but he doesn't feel like it's allowed right now. "I would definitely listen to it again..."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"Fine," Xander relents, as if his arm were being twisted about it. He draws Riley back in toward him, trying to shift their positions so Riley's the one being held and resting. Riley does things backwards enough as it is. Xander might as well pay it forward now and then.
It may be a ploy to keep Riley from being able to easily look directly at Xander's face. Xander lets his fingers idly intermingle with Riley's hair.
"...He hid from me, at first. Under the covers. And I didn't know how to say hi, or properly introduce myself, or anything like that... So I just started reading to him -- my favorite book."
Where his own face struggles to smile, there's a softening to his voice in its place.
"Once the story was finished, he told me about himself. Then asked about me." He huffs one of his almost laughs. "He thought I was much more amazing than I was. Some things don't change, I suppose. Getting all these ideas in his head about what it meant to be an alchemist in training who knew a few magic tricks..."
Xander shakes his head. "I came back every day while he was there. To tell stories, or sometimes just to talk. He seemed quiet, like me. Shy with a gloomy aura..."
His brows furrow and he pokes Riley in the cheek. "Then he got better and it turned out he was an incogitable whirlwind of chaotic whimsy."
He sighs heavily, as if to help mime how exhausted he was with what transpired that day... perhaps inflicted with the most damning ailment of all. "I fell in love with him then, even if I didn't know exactly what the feeling was at the time."
An ending that explains why Xander might not want meet Riley in the eye. But with the current gloom that's began to sink its claws into Riley, Xander can stomach leaving himself open to teasing, if that's what it takes to fix it. It's not anything Riley doesn't already know, anyway. He was there, worming his way into Xander's heart.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Oh!! He's actually telling the story...!! Riley reddens as he is positioned in the sheltering way he so often positions Xander. Xander is indulging him!! He is being indulged!! This is an important moment, he must take note...!
The sorrow and horror of everything and his culpability in all of it had been feeling so inescapably stark to him, and yet...!! He can't leave such a gift unenjoyed, can he? He should listen closely and treasure it...
And so the tension of resisting what he does not deserve eases, and Riley relaxes in Xander's arms to listen to the tale and savor the soft touches that come with it.
He can't help but offer a few small corrections, though. "You were amazing, though. Still are. Remember when you found me and saved me even though you couldn't see? That's beyond a regular person's ability..."
Shy with a gloomy aura...
So there WERE surprises lurking. "You thought I was shy, with a gloomy aura..!?" Well, it's not really that strange based on how he was behaving when they met! "Who knew my sadness was so vital... I might have scared you off without it...!"
He gets to the part where Xander describes him as a whirlwind of chaotic whimsy, and gives a delighted, slightly evil laugh, though despite the gleefulness, his eyes shine a little with unshed tears. It all seems so innocent looking back on that time. Shouldn't they have had regular, innocent lives?
He squeezes Xander's hand in his own. "I'm glad you fell in love after you realized I wasn't shy. It would have been a difficult life for you to be pining for that shy, gloomy Riley forever..."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander endures Riley's interjections and corrections with a sharp look, bending forward to loom over him so Riley actually can see it. It's as if to say, who's telling the story here? It's Xander. Xander is telling it and Riley is wrong.
But then comes the laughter of a Riley who is gaining power. Xander has made Riley more powerful, because of course he has. Xander sighs again, shoulders slumped, but a smile hidden on his heart where the fatigue overtakes the rest of him.
"...None of that is anything you have to worry about. I'd only have fallen for you faster if you'd shown yourself sooner." He strokes a thumb carefully down Riley's cheek with one hand, the other squeezing back. "It's fine if you're sad, too. But I... needed to see all of you."
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"...and if you wanted to see him again, you would have had to fight your kind-hearted nature and tell me bad news so you could see my face fall... poor Xander..." Riley speculates, with great enthusiasm. He does not seem to be worrying, he seems to be rather enjoying this hypothetical universe.
But he smiles up at Xander at the reassurance. "...Or that. I shouldn't underestimate your heart.
He reaches to take Xander's face in his hands and give him a kiss. "Thank you for sharing some of your memories with me."
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander prods at Riley's cheek again. "Just what are you imagining? And why are you enjoying it?!" Get that weird reality out of your head, Riley...!
He's pacified by the smile and acceptance of Xander's own truth. There's no fuss as he's led down for a kiss, lingering close. He gives a noncommittal grunt at Riley's gratitude. "You get it now, right? You're already in all the ones that matter."
And yet somehow there are still 'secrets' that slip through. Xander should really know better by now that the details Riley craves are the ones Xander's most reluctant to say.