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The paper crinkles as it is passed between them.
I want to apologize. I have to leave again. Veronica and I, we…
We can’t be around all of you like this.
Not...yet.
He's very careful not to touch Alfonse when he passes the paper back over to him.
Is it easier like this?
Alfonse writes.
Yes
Alfonse pauses for a moment, eyebrows kitted together. When he writes, it's slow, every longform letter looping out in perfect style.
I understand.
But he doesn’t hand it back yet.
I…
He frowns over the word.
I miss you. I wish I could say the right thing to make you stay.
Alfonse runs a thumb over the worn corner of the parchment. Stops himself from looking up to check Zacharias' reaction.
Will you write?
he marks down eventually, in small, tiny letters. He holds the sheet out in a halfhearted way. There is hesitation, in Zacharias’ acceptance of the thing.
A hesitation that doesn’t go unnoticed.
Alfonse snatches it back, eyes stinging.
Never mind, he scrawls hastily. Please, forget I-
Zacharias grabs Alfonse’s hand, wincing at the contact.
“Please,” he says, and his voice is hoarse. “Stay here, for a moment.”
He rises in an instant, leaving Alfonse holding nothing but the empty irony of the request. He traces ‘I want to apologize’ with stiff fingers. By the time Zacharias returns, though, he’s sitting stoically in the twilight, their shared paper loose in his hands.
“Here.” Zacharias shoves a messy bundle of disorganized papers in Alfonse's direction
“What...” Alfonse asks. His voice trails off as he takes the bundle. There are dozens of sheets, some folded, some crumpled and then smoothed back out. Some torn and two charred on the edges.
He unfolds one at random. A date, and Zacharias’ sprawling, complex handwriting.
My love- it starts.
Alfonse folds it back up again in a hurry. His eyes sting all the more. Zacharias’ are unreadable.
“And this,” he says, before Alfonse can speak. The small package he places in Alfonse’s hands feels almost warm to the touch.
Alfonse keeps himself steady while he’s opening it, if only because Zacharias himself is beginning to tremble, and bite down hard on his teeth. His breathing has picked up too, and Alfonse knows what it means but he doesn’t want – can't – say goodbye yet.
When he undoes the paper surrounding the package, he’s left holding a light blue crystal. It glows softly with wavering, pale colors, and a pearlescent, glimmering, near-transparent rune lies deep beyond the flat facets of the rock’s surface. It’s astonishingly beautiful, and starkly familiar. Alfonse is perplexed for a moment, and then he understands.
Warmth clears the ache in his throat. He feels like jumping, like moving, but he stills himself.
“A sending stone,” he says, hushed by the responding pulse of the rune's light.
Zacharias smiles faintly, through a flicker of pain that jolts across his face.
“For when- whenever...” he says. “Whenever you...have need of me.”
He dips a thumb under his breastplate and hooks it around a thin, weave-wire silver necklace. He pulls it free and affixed to the end, wrapped and caught up in a molten, polished gemstone setting is an even smaller, vibrantly bright chip of stone.
“Where I travel,” Zacharias continues, “your owl shouldn’t- shouldn’t- hh... hah...”
He squeezes his eyes closed, and his fists go so tight Alfonse worries he’ll hurt himself.
“Please,” Alfonse offers. “You can....if you need. You can leave, it's alright.”
He stumbles over the words one too many times, he thinks. Meanwhile, Zacharias takes a few more unsteady breaths. When he opens his eyes again, they are blazing with something Alfonse can’t identify. He’s not afraid, though. Not when Zacharias carefully takes off a glove, and not when he reaches for Alfonse. Not when he carefully cradles the side of Alfonse jaw.
When he speaks, his voice is clear, and steady.
“I cannot promise you,” he says, “that I will always be able to talk. But, I will always be there. I swear this to you.”
His hand burns against Alfonse’s skin, and he can’t tell if the heat is alarmingly imaginary, or terrifyingly real.
“Now,” Zacharias says. Tension springs up and strains through his hand. “You need to leave. Now, right now.”
Alfonse nods wordlessly. Breaking from Zacharias leaves an achingly cold feeling on his cheek, but he ignores it. He delays only long enough to grab the letters Zacharias has given him before he bolts.
He steals a look back before he leaves eyesight. Zacharias is curled up around himself on the ground. And it hurts to see, hurts to know this is happening, but...
Alfonse tightens his grip on his sending stone, and in the distance, Zacharias is doing the same. They hold on, and it all hurts just a little bit less.