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Ravennue village is almost as small as Hamel.
The houses are old and worn under the moonlight, the shadows of the tree branches gently swaying with the passing breeze. It is a quaint picture, perhaps one from another time, even.
Or at least it would be, if the orchards hadn’t been burned to ashes.
Admittedly, there was little choice Loewe could make. It was either that, or the much more crowded streets of Bose. And although Ravennue relies on its fruit trees for income, orchards can be regrown. Humans, however, cannot be brought back from the dead.
“I’ll be back soon, Agate!”
The front door of a house clatters open, and Tita Russell steps into the pool of light that spills outside. She gives a small wave back inside before gently closing the door. And when she turns to carefully make her way down the steep path, she is cradling a bucket of neatly folded clothes to her chest.
Then, the night is quiet again.
The light inside the house remains on. Inside, the silhouette of Agate Crosner moves across the windows and draws the curtains closed.
In the silence, Loewe lets out a soft exhale, and tips forward out of a tree.
Loewe knocks on the door three times.
“Shortstuff?” Agate’s voice calls from inside, shortly followed by footsteps and the click of the door handle as it opens. “I thought I told you to take the key with–”
Agate’s eyes flicker upwards to meet Loewe’s, a warm violet in the light. His mild expression quickly turns to iron. “ You. What kind of sick fucking joke is this?”
Loewe can hardly blame him for the reaction, given how their last meeting went. He offers, “You seem to be recovering well.”
Agate’s scowl only deepens. “Yeah, no thanks to you, asshole. What are you doing here?”
Wordlessly, Loewe reaches into his coat pocket. Agate flinches, his eyes closely following his hand as he lifts it out of his pocket and opens it, revealing a small tin in the palm of his hand.
When Agate doesn’t move, Loewe twists open the lid and swiftly drags a fingertip against the waxy contents inside. He then swipes it against the back of his other hand and holds it up in the light.
“A salve,” he says, as he closes the lid once more.
Agate’s expression twists into incredulity. But then he glances between Loewe and the tin still sitting in his hand, held out to him. And Loewe wonders if this is when he’ll swat his hand away and grab his sword from inside his house for a rematch.
An ill-timed one, given his injuries and the sheer difference in their strength, but so far Agate Crosner has shown he is nothing if not tenacious.
But instead, he gingerly takes the salve. Still glancing at him, he twists open the lid and peers inside, slowly turning it in the light. He eyes Loewe again. “Why are you giving me this?”
To apologise is not quite the right answer. Not when he would be prepared to do much worse than a few scratches and a broken sword if it were in service to the Society, and especially not when he would’ve done worse already if Tita Russell hadn’t tearfully pleaded her case.
That is also not touching upon the fact Loewe doesn’t feel very sorry at all.
Agate Crosner had attempted to interfere with the gospel experiment and, by extension, the Society’s plans. And of course, Loewe didn’t become an Enforcer by letting just anyone do as they pleased.
There was also the disappointment sitting somewhere in his chest - in a place where he does not go - from finding he is no different from the other foolish humans who swing their weapons and throw themselves into the throes of violence just to feel . And who delude themselves into thinking they have a chance at victory simply because they want it.
He realises a little bitterly now that he was hoping he would be different.
And yet he is standing here, outside his house in a village that reminds him of his own, handing him a tin of salve as if–
“What, is it because you care about me or something?”
Loewe does not flinch. “It helps with healing,” he says. “And I’ve been telling you, haven’t I? We’re similar to one another.”
The corner of Agate’s mouth twitches. Then he gives a heavy sigh and scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, you keep saying that, but you’ve never explained what that actually means.”
It remains beyond Loewe why a child as brave and brilliant as Tita Russell would be so willing to die for such a fool. He simply does not listen.
“If you still don’t know after all the encounters we’ve had, then I have nothing else to say to you,” says Loewe.
He turns away, fists clenched. But before he can take two steps, Agate suddenly calls out to him, “I do know one thing, at least. It’s that you were right about me.”
Loewe stills again, looking out towards the path for a moment longer before he looks over his shoulder.
Agate’s hands are by his sides, his left turning the tin of salve between his fingers distractedly. “I just…fight so I can forget how much everything hurts. First I threw my fists around, then it was my sword - the heaviest I could find, because the more it took out of me to use it, the better. Because what the hell was I supposed to do with all this otherwise?” Then he sighs, and looks out to the side, towards the woods. “You were right about that. And I knew it from the start, I was just…”
Deluding himself. It seems he does listen, after all.
Loewe turns to face Agate once again. And as he stares into the distance, he can see the familiar sadness in his eyes. It’s always been there, but in the low, warm light of the house, it’s drawn to the surface - open, vulnerable.
Loewe probably looked that way too, once.
“It’s weird,” says Agate. “I’ve been thinking this whole time that no one gets it, but it’s only because I’ve been running away from it, isn’t it? And I don’t even know if I’ve gotten anywhere with it, because–”
“Because you have no goal,” Loewe says suddenly. “Nowhere to direct all your rage and your despair. Because you know that no matter what you do, it won’t bring back the people you love.”
Agate looks back at him, his expression painted with surprise. But slowly, that sad smile returns. “Yeah. Exactly that.”
Silence falls between them, while the nightly breeze continues to pass through the trees.
“But, thanks for this,” says Agate, raising the salve. “I’ll make sure to use it.”
He smiles, then - something impossibly soft for a man like Agate Crosner. But in the small doorway that barely reaches over his head, where the light casts his unruly hair a sunset-like red, his smile is innocent. And Loewe wonders for a horrible second if it is the smile of a boy who believed in better things.
At that thought, a sense of finality pierces him somewhere deep within. A nail in a coffin.
He had found someone who might have been similar to him in a way he never felt possible before. But Agate Crosner can never walk the same path that Loewe is. Not because his heart is heavy, but because of the very life it beats with - the light that radiates from within it.
Agate has half-turned away, his hand pushing the door handle. But he suddenly stops, contemplating, before looking at Loewe again. “You know, you may be an Enforcer and all, and I don’t know why you’re with them, but…” The look in his eyes shifts, like clouds parting in the sky, seeing him for the first time. “I’m starting to feel like maybe you’re not such a bad guy, behind all that attitude of yours.”
Loewe furrows his brows. “And what makes you think that?”
Agate’s smile becomes more laidback, and his chin lifts slightly. “Don’t get me wrong - we’re still gonna kick your asses. But you could’ve easily given me something dangerous. And you knew I’d think that might be the case, so you used it on yourself first to show me. Call me naive, but I don’t think anybody else from your Society would’ve even bothered doing all that just to lie about their intentions.”
Loewe smirks, almost instinctively - a mask well-worn. “And what would you know about my intentions?”
He takes a step towards Agate, leaning into his space until he has to turn to face him fully just to move an inch away. “I am not a good person by any means, nor do I care for it,” he says lowly. “I am simply a tool for the Society’s ends, and I have no regrets about the person I have become for that purpose. And unlike you, I have long let go of any humanity or attachment - any weight that would deter my focus.”
Agate scoffs, something unknowably daring darkening his eyes. And his smile twists into a mirror image of Loewe’s. “Attachment, huh?”
He moves, and perhaps it truly was that lump of iron he calls a sword weighing him down, for he is suddenly quicker than ever before.
Agate only needs to lean to close the distance between them, tilting his head as he does. And Loewe only manages to wrap his hand around the hilt of his sword before Agate’s calloused palm brushes his cheek, and he kisses him.
It’s chaste - a surprisingly gentle brushing of lips. Agate gradually pushes closer, little by little, and covers Loewe’s hand on his sword with his when he doesn’t move away.
And he…he can’t. It must be because it’s been so long. He hasn’t kissed anyone since–
Agate pulls away, and Loewe finds himself almost leaning towards him. His heart is pounding and his blood roars in his ears. And when he looks up, Agate is stepping back with an infuriatingly smug grin and his hands clasped behind his head. “You should see the look on your face right now.”
Loewe’s mouth shuts closed. His chest burns hot - indignant. “Oh, you think you’re cute. ”
He strides forth, shoving Agate into the wall by his door before he crushes his lips to his. And Agate Crosner smiles into it, keeping his mouth shut for once as Loewe licks his tongue against his bottom lip. Or at least he does until Loewe snakes a hand around the back of Agate’s head and tugs his hair hard , Agate’s mouth falling open around a moan.
He pulls Loewe closer, his hands burning low on his back where they’ve slipped underneath his coat. And they’re so close Loewe is almost unsure of where his heartbeat ends and where Agate’s begins, too fixated on the deepening flush of his skin and his hot breath against Loewe’s lips whenever they part.
“Fuck,” Agate curses. His eyes are screwed shut and his head falls against the wall.
“Starting another fight you can’t finish, Agate Crosner?” Loewe asks, feeling his own smile return to him. “You never seem to learn.”
Agate may give his usual, arrogant smirk of his, but Loewe does not miss the way his eyes are blown wide. “We’ll see about that.”
Pressing him closer again, Agate suddenly flips them. Loewe’s back hits the wall. And he barely has enough time to register it, much less think , before Agate’s mouth is on his again.
His skin is on fire wherever Agate’s hands wander. It has been too long. That must be why even he is beginning to sigh into his kisses, and why he doesn’t want him to stop even when he lowers his hands to Loewe’s hips and presses a thigh between them–
There is a loud crash down the hill.
Agate pushes away faster than Loewe can open his eyes. He calls out into the night, “Who’s there?!”
After a moment, a squeak emerges from down the hill, too far down for Loewe to see. “I’m sorry, it’s just me!” It’s Tita Russell - she must be back from her bath. “I just tripped and dropped some of my things.”
“O-oh.” Agate simmers down, and coughs into his fist. “Be careful in the dark,” he says.
With his back fully turned to him now, Loewe slips away into the forest. The breeze that passes through is familiarly cool against the back of his neck.
He crouches with his back against a wide tree and looks over his shoulder back towards the house. He watches Tita run towards Agate, her bucket of clothes hugged securely to her chest. “What were you doing outside?” she asks. “And you look…kind of red.”
Even from this angle, Loewe can see Agate blanch. “Uh– I was just getting some…fresh air. I…think I might have a fever.”
“What?!” Tita gasps, and Loewe has half a mind to wonder if telling her the truth would be able to save him now.
Agate immediately realises his mistake and grimaces at himself. “Wait, no, it might just be–”
“I swear I cleaned up all your wounds before Estelle and the others left!” Panicking, Tita grabs Agate's arm and pulls him back inside the house, closing the door as she does.
The floundering continues inside. Eventually, Agate sits down and lets Tita press the back of her hand against his forehead, the house finally growing quiet again.
Loewe turns away and lays low in the night. His skin is still warm, and there are phantom sensations in the places Agate had touched him.
And so Loewe runs from him, again.