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How long has it been since he last slept so deeply?
There is no answer he can give to that, for he does not remember. He has spent many sleepless nights wandering around, patroling the area around Wangshu Inn in the moonlight and in the lack of it, and they have hardly affected his performance.
Sleep matters very little to him—-sleep may sometimes even be a detriment.
Dead gods are persistent, and unconsciousness is a vulnerable state.
But now he sinks into deep sleep as he sits on the cavern floor in the depths of the Chasm, the memories of what he has gone through at the forefront of his mind.
Is it any wonder they pull him into a dream?
“Alatus.” Two fingers pinched at his cheek, a slight flare of pain following the touch. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”
The voice was deep and rumbling, as familiar as thunderstorms but nowhwere near as unpleasant. It was as much a part of Alatus’s life as his own eyes and limbs were. No matter how much time would pass, Alatus would recognize the timbre of it in a heartbeat.
“Mmm…”
Another pair of fingers pinched at his other cheek. “Alatus.”
“What is it, Bosacius?” Alatus’s eyes fluttered open finally, the bleary world sharpening into the form of Bosacius’s face before him. If he tried to sound annoyed, he failed; his voice came out hoarse and sleepy instead. But the rest of his body was alert, and his hand sought out Jade-winged Spear. “Monsters?”
Bosacius laughed deep from his throat. One of his arms set Alatus’s weapon arm down, gentle but firm. “No, of course not. We are free from that duty for now.”
A sigh. Alatus’s shoulders sank down. “Why, then?”
“I want to take you somewhere, and if you sleep longer, you’ll miss it.” Bosacius offered a hand to him, and Alatus took it, letting Bosacius pull him up.
Sometimes Bosacius did stupid, unpredictable things—silly pranks being one of his most favored forms of affection—but Alatus’s tolerance for them kept growing and growing the more time he spent with him.
If this was one of them, then so be it.
“You’re not waking the others?” Alatus asked as they left the makeshift camp for all five of them. Indarias and Bonanus slept huddled together under the shade of a tall tree, already half-covered under red leaves, and Menogias was not too far from them—sleeping on his own two feet, a funny but understandable habit that Alatus was surprised he himself hadn’t yet developed.
Bosacius held Alatus’s hand in one of his. His voice was warm, full of good humor, when he said, “No, this is not for them.”
They climbed up the mountain—a relatively minimal effort, for both of them. Air thinned and cooled around them, stroking gently at Alatus’s bare shoulders as he reached the peak with Bosacius. Early morning made the fog descend to the earth, but the air was clear here in the higher altitudes.
Alatus liked the air here. It was so different from the darkest memories he had—and the brush of Bosacius’s hands against his reminded him that he was in good company. Warmth bloomed somewhere within him, and it spread open like flower petals under the touch of sun.
“What did you bring me here for, Bosacius?” he asked, gazing at the horizon and the light spearing through the fading dark. Dawn breaking through twilight. Alatus’s fingers twitched, and soon they found themselves between Bosacius’s larger ones.
“For these.”
Alatus turned to look where Bosacius’s free hands gestured.
At their feet, a gathering of flowers, three-headed and white-petaled.
“You like them, don’t you?” Bosacius asked, though it wasn’t much of a question. “They’re tough to find in groups like this, so I thought I ought to show it to you.”
Alatus had yet to grow used to such thoughtfulness, and it rendered him speechless yet again; he stared at the flowers and their curling petals before lifting his gaze back to Bosacius, whose eyes were on him, curious and quietly excited but patient all the same.
In the past—he would have known such a gift demanded something from him.
Now that there was no such demand, Alatus did not know what to do. His throat closed up embarrassingly.
Bosacius seemed to realize this from his expression anyway—though Alatus thought he was good at hiding his thoughts—and decided to make things worse.
He reached down and plucked one of the flowers with all its three heads before leaning up and reaching for Alatus. Battle-bruised fingers tucked the flower behind Alatus’s ear, and there they lingered as Alatus’s eyes widened.
“Bosacius,” he said, voice thick. Nothing else would come out. The cool of the morning couldn’t ease the hammering in his chest, the fresh anxiety that flooded his face with heat. He swallowed, and he managed to squeeze out a soft, “Thank you.”
Bosacius laughed. Instead of its usual boisterous quality, this one was gentler, softer, and Bosacius’s fingers brushed over Alatus’s ear in an affectionate gesture.
“Alatus,” he said, “we do these things because we care for you.”
“By we,” Alatus murmured, “you mean yourself.”
“I won’t say no to that,” Bosacius said, a crooked grin tugging at his mouth, “but they care as well, you know. We are brothers- and sisters-in-arms. And if I care a little bit differently… well. We can keep that secret, can’t we, Alatus?”
“Mmmhm. I don’t disagree.”
And when Bosacius’s arms pulled him closer, Alatus made no effort to resist, going so far as to rest his head against Bosacius’s wide chest as they watched the morning come fully.
*
“It makes you look more approachable, trust me,” Bosacius said, trying so very hard to not laugh and break the illusion of seriousness. All four of his arms lay crossed over his bare chest, which Menogias kept sending reproachful looks at.
“Approachable,” Alatus repeated the word flatly as he squinted into the small mirror Bonanus held up for him, a somewhat sheepish smile on her soft face. The ink marks on his face showed quite well: a circle had been painted around one of his eyes, and something like feline whiskers on his cheeks.
“It is very charming, brother,” Bonanus said, fighting her growing smile hard. His lip curled as he scowled—only mildly; it was not Bonanus who had painted his face—but this detterd neither her nor the actual guilty party.
“I tried to stop him,” Indarias said from behind the fan she held over her mouth. Alatus had it made for her, and she had been delighted with it.
“Not terribly hard,” Menogias commented airily, tucking his hands into his sleeves and adopting a serene, meditative expression when the fiery adeptus shot him a pout. Alatus rather envied his calm—only disturbed when Menogias had to make the attempt at dressing their Marshal Vritras up.
“Neither did you, Menogias,” Bosacius said, his voice rumbling in the forest clearing. He sounded much too pleased with his work, and his fingers still played with the brush used to do the task.
Alatus contemplated if it was even worth getting mad and even if it was, then how mad. This wasn’t exactly the first time Bosacius had pulled a prank on one of them.
He gestured with his hand, and Bonanus tucked the small mirror back into a makeshift belt around her waist.
“Very funny, Bosacius,” Alatus said, flatly. He flexed his fingers at his side, slowly. “I hope you had your fun.”
“Uh-oh, eldest brother,” Bonanus cooed. “Might want to get a head start.”
“Huh? Huh? Alatus, don’t look at me like that—”
“Why, Bosacius,” Alatus said serenely, “do you feel threatened?”
“Three,” Menogias murmured, a smile twitching on his lips.
“Two,” Bonanus said cheerfully.
“One,” Indarias said and tittered behind her fan.
Alatus reached out for the yaksha’s mask at his side and slipped it on—and Bosacius sprinted off away from the forest clearing.
Alatus didn’t chase after him, and soon set the mask back where it belonged at his side.
“That was a little melodramatic, Alatus,” Menogias said, not disapprovingly. He was always the most overdressed of them, and he was so now too, in full ceremonial robes even as the heat of afternoon beat upon them. The fabric of the sleeves swayed gently in the comforting breeze.
“So is he,” Alatus said in return, a small smile crawling over his face. “Serves him right, wouldn’t you say?”
And they, his brother and sisters in duty, laughed with him this time.
*
Alatus tried not to flinch when Bosacius’s fingers touched upon the scars on his back. The reaction would have been easy for Bosacius to catch, with Alatus pressed so closely against his Marshall’s strong chest.
It seemed Bosacius caught it regardless, because his fingers halted—all twenty of them, on all parts of Alatus’s body they had been.
“Alatus?”
Alatus’s body went from warm to cold in an instant at the query in Bosacius’s voice. Clenching his jaw, Alatus forced out, “It’s—all right.”
Bosacius stilled, and Alatus was afraid he’d ask about it.
No matter how close they all were, no matter how close to Bosacius he was, there were things that Alatus could not speak of without lingering horror.
“If you say so,” Bosacius said, kindly. “Tell me if you want me to stop, though.”
“A-alright.”
Bosacius’s fingers studied his scars carefully, with surprising gentleness for someone as big as Bosacius. Knowing him as well as Alatus did, though, it was the furthest thing from surprise that he should be like this in moments as intimate as this.
Bosacius’s fingers were rough from battle, but the touch itself was soothing against the ridges of Alatus’s scars.
Alatus’s hands tightened on Bosacius’s shoulders, and he finally buried his face into the crook of the other’s neck, hiding away his expression as he gulped down air.
“Those memories,” Alatus murmured more to himself than to Bosacius, his throat dry, “always so dark.”
“You’re here,” Bosacius said, low and soft in the fading daylight above them. One of his hands stroked at Alatus’s side, thumb gently rubbing over a rib. “I’ll take care of you, Alatus, if you let me.”
“Mmm.” Alatus lifted his head again. “Close your eyes, Bosacius.”
Bosacius did.
Alatus leaned up as much as he could while held down on Bosacius’s lap by all those hands, and pressed his lips gently over the groove of a scar on an eyelid.
He had been there on the day Bosacius received it.
He knew Bosacius didn’t mind it, that he even cherished the scars on his body, but Alatus felt very keenly that it had been his fault.
Alatus’s hands moved to Bosacius’s face, and he hesitated only briefly before he brought their lips together. Bosacius's mouth rose into a delighted grin, and that was enough to dispel all the dark thoughts Alatus had experienced only moments ago.
His beacon of electric light.
*
There was always war, always fighting, but there had never been so much of that amongst themselves. Things changed, and it was dreadful just how fast they could change.
Alatus always knew mortal life was beyond all of them, but this—
Bonanus and Menogias’s broken bodies leered at them from where they had set them down, the taint of karma still aglow even when their spirits had already passed on. Their faces twisted in agony, not at peace in death, and Alatus could hardly bear to look at his little war-siblings’ once kindly faces in such a state.
Was this a form of what Rex Lapis called erosion ?
“Where’s Indarias?” Bosacius asked, with great weight to the words, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know but asked anyway because it was his duty. Alatus turned and watched the sinking of his shoulders instead of the corpses, but there was little comfort to be found there today.
“She has sought out the regisvine. I don’t know if the warmth of her element brings her comfort, but she seems less afraid in that cavern than anywhere else.”
Alatus felt brittle, breakable, but he had always been good at maintaining facades since Rex Lapis had taken him in from that place.
“I see.” Bosacius didn’t look at him; his attention was for Menogias and Bonanus alone. There was something brittle about his stance, too. “They always got along so well before…”
Alatus wished he knew how to comfort. But comfort didn’t exist here, not in their lives as yakshas. Bonanus had also said, when they had borne witness to the farewells of their juniors, that it was rare for a yaksha to find peace for their souls.
She had been so sad about it. They had all been.
“Bosacius,” Alatus said, as he turned his eyes back to the two siblings-in-arms. The words came out much thicker than he wished them to, coated with the salt of the unshed tears in his eyes.
“Don’t die before me.”
*
Indarias’s death was horrible, and she had died alone. That was the worst part of it, Bosacius had declared grimly to him. To be surrounded by siblings and family in your last moments… she, who always wanted to live like mortals, should have been granted this.
Alatus wondered, wearily, why it wasn’t him.
He, who had no dreams for future—
No dreams he expected to come true anyway.
*
The last day he ever saw Bosacius, they were arguing. Alatus was in pain and irritated, and so was Bosacius—ah, should Rex Lapis have seen them, he would have been greatly saddened indeed.
Something about Bosacius was different that day. Agitated. Bloodthirsty. The memory of it was vague at best, but Alatus would always remember Bosacius’s hand around his neck and his own hand grappling with the Jade-winged Spear.
“Alatus,” he growled, his voice thunderous, but Alatus was too far gone to take the warning and pushed back with bared teeth. “If you won’t take an order from me, you—”
“Not when it’s utterly mindless, Bosacius!”
“What are you—a coward ? That’s not the Alatus I know!”
“And this isn’t like you, Bosacius!”
Bosacius let go of him with a scoff, before skulking off, four of his hands each clenched into a tight fit. Something damp bled through the violet gloves covering them, and that alone convinced Alatus to not follow.
Bosacius left behind trampled qingxins and weighty footprints, but rain would soon wash them away.
He never saw him again, after that day.
*
“Alatus…”
His heart hurts when he comes to again at that accursed bottom level of The Chasm, but it has nothing to do with karma this time.
It has very little to do with the injuries he sustained earlier, either.
“Lumine, it looks like the Conqueror of Demons is awake, now.” Yanfei’s voice breaks through Xiao’s admittedly still groggy mind.
With a quick exhale, he banishes the dreams which had been memories and stood up to meet the Traveler and the others. If Lumine sees anything off on his face, she does him the kindness of not inquiring further.
He steels himself for the questions that would come. There are some he could and would never give an answer to, but he thinks Lumine isn’t outrageous enough to look any deeper into what he is going to share with them.
And maybe, later, he would find the answers he is looking for.
Forgive me, Bosacius. I should have come sooner.