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In a certain multistory carpark in London, there are two avatars huddled together beneath the earth.
Sobbing and being sobbed upon. Holding and being held.
Only one of the two is an Avatar of the Buried.
Her partner is (in remission? Recovering?) from xir alleigance to another power, so all she can think to do is follow her instincts and Bury them with her, below the protective layers of concrete and earth, to allow them this one sanctuary to express the emotions choking xem past the point of legibility.
The Lonely cannot prey on xem down here, after all.
Petra Ito hugs her partner tight, relishing in the closeness of xir embrace.
She does not understand totally why xey weep, but she can at least provide this. She had no lost love for her blood relatives, but she knows intellectually that she is the exception, not the norm.
Even so, she can sympathize with certain aspects of her love’s loss.
She presses another kiss to Frey’s forehead, humming, it’s alright, it’s okay, I’m here, not alone, I’ll protect you, I love you, love you, love you.
“I know, love, I know. I’ll sink it into the ground if you want.”
The Type B chokes off into a sob again, pushing closer to Petra. She clutches xem tight, xir usually pristine clothing and hair entangled with countless granules of dirt. “You can’t. It’s, it’s the Magnus Institute. There’s so much money poured into that place—!”
Xey choke off into a sob again, pushing closer to Petra. She clutches them tighter, scowls as she fends off the hungry tendrils of her patron.
No. Not for You. Not This One.
“I could. If you really wanted me to.” She murmurs, drawing her nails up and down xir spine. Take on the world for you, protect you, bury it all, love you, love you, love you.
Frey gasps for breath, brows furrowing down.
“Un-uncle Peter poured so much of himself into that place, an-and for what?! S-some recalcitrant, uptight arsewipe, who, who’d never even loved him the same way he loved them, some random PA he’d thought would be an, an asset to the Forsaken, the Archivist—!”
Xey can’t help the sob bubbling up again. Petra presses another dirt-smeared kiss to xir brow, painting their partner liberally with evidence of her affection.
Xey aren’t alone now, no matter how much xir grief tries to isolate them.
Not alone, I’m here, I’ll protect you, love you, love you, love you. “I know, love. He was a brave man, trying to handle those forces like that. Make things safer for the rest of us.”
Frey buries xir face in Petra’s front, even now still being gentle due to the sensitivity there in the midst of all xir suffering.
The sweetness of the gesture makes her heart swell in ways that she hadn’t thought possible outside of fiction, certain that if Frey could, xey’d be humming sweet nothings right back to her.
If she hadn’t met xem that night…
Thoughts of the circumstances surrounding their first meeting drew her up short. “We need to warn them.” She murmurs quietly, almost to herself.
In the dark of the grotto, it is hard to see the shine of her partner’s wide, dark eyes as xey blink up at her. “Huh?”
“I need to warn them.” She repeats. “You know, Des, and…what is it, we’re calling it now?”
Frey tilted xir head to the side in contemplation. “…Outis?” Xey ventured.
Petra huffs a laugh and bestows another kiss. “No, that’s just what you liked the most, because you’re a language nerd. It was Nanashi, wasn’t it?”
Frey snorts in return and leans up to meet her lips for the first time since she’d sequestered them both down here after hearing the news. “Now who’s the language nerd? It’s not Benjamin, I know that much.”
“Well, of course it’s not Benjamin.” Petra jokes. “Well, you get who I mean, right? The Stranger kid.”
“Like I know anyone else who Des renames so often, and who won’t pick one and stick to it.”
Petra sighs, gently toying with a few curls at the edges of her partner’s ponytail. “I’ll need to tell them to stay out of London for a while, ‘til everything dies down and this Archivist hopefully goes the way of Gertrude Robinson.”
Those last two words are spat like a particularly foul curse.
Frey tightens xir grip and nuzzles into Petra’s neck.
She accepts the comfort gladly. “Yeah. The farther those two are away from that murderer, the better. I don’t know what I’d do if he got near either of them. Probably die, given my luck”
Petra makes a small noise of protest. Not die, never die, don’t say that, I love you. “I’d protect you. But yeah, best to stay away for now. Particularly Stranger-kid, or whatever the hell it‘s called now. You know he was the one who blew the Circus to smithereens? If that man got wind that even one of them had escaped his genocide…”
Frey shivers. “Ugh. Please don’t.”
“Sorry love.” Petra busses an apology kiss between xir eyebrows. I’ll be nice, I’ll be good. “But. Yeah. Des’ mum and family are smart, so he should be okay, and I haven’t seen it around since the whole Web Leitner issue, but. I should warn them. Tell them to run away from anyone calling themselves the Archivist at least. I don’t want them following him home by accident.”
Frey huffs a short, almost bitter laugh. “It’s kind of like they’re our kids, isn’t it? Just one weird, messed up avatar family.”
Petra has to bite her lip to control the swarm of (thankfully metaphorical) butterflies in her stomach at that image, swarming like Des’ family always do.
She can’t, however, keep in the excited trill of family, children, yes, yes, pick me, choose me, want to be with you, want to make one with you, love you, love you, love you.
Frey sputters with laughter while she attempts to will the blood away from her burning cheeks.
“What?!” She snaps, defensively. “Can’t think of anyone I’d wanna parent with more than you.”
Frey’s blushes don’t show up like hers do, but pressed this close, she can feel the heat rising off xir skin. “Oh, love…”
There’s silence in the small grotto of earth under the parking lot for some time, broken only by the sounds of shifting clothing as the two try to hug even closer together and the satisfied purring of a content Type A.
“…Great Uncle Nathanial wants me to go meet with Director Bouchard. To make The Family’s grievances known.” Frey mutters at last. “Would—would you come with me? J-just so…”
Petra swallows down her instinctive and visceral refusal.
She’s never wanted to become another sob story trapped in the walls of the Eye’s temple, stripped of everything that made her her and left to rot, not like Mason after Gertrude Robinson got her hands on him.
But if the alternative is consigning poor, sweet Frey to that hell alone…
“Of course I will.” She murmurs back. I love you, I love you, I love you. “You never even had to ask.”