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Phineas doesn’t know what love is supposed to look like.
Jonas realizes this like a punch to the gut.
The moment has settled. The chaos, left behind in a shattering city that once was The Highest Light. What a name, The Highest Light! What absolute egoism, flaunted openly, yet hidden in plain sight. How did he not see it sooner? Why, why, did it take him so damn long to let it go? It was right there in front of him, the failing system, the weight of one caenum bead around the neck of an impressionable boy. He had refused to see it, and in doing so, had failed the person he cared about the most.
It's been barely a day since they arrived at the Lazaretto, and Jonas Spahr sits alone on the edge of his bed. The room is small, and strange, with furniture that seems to grow straight from the ground as though the building itself is an organic thing. When he first came to Sequester, Jonas was shocked. The fold-saturated city was unlike anything he'd ever seen. It has been hitting him, over and over again, how sheltered he really is. He thought, through all his adventures, that he knew something about the world. That he was cultured and informed and valorous. It was ego.
As the weight of the past few weeks washes over him, Jonas lets out a sound that is both hysterical and exhausted. He hadn’t intended to disrupt the system of oppression. He didn’t even think it was possible. But when faced with the choice to kill Phineas a second time, no was the only answer he could think of. And still that wasn't enough.
It’s like Jonas’ whole body has been saturated with a feeling he can’t describe. An overwhelming sensation of grief, and guilt, and love. It takes physical shape within him, pushing against his heart and seeping out through his pores. It’s too much. It’s not enough. Though the intensity is stifling, it is also freeing. Finally, he gets to feel what he’s been suppressing all along. All the unvalorous emotions, no longer hidden behind a curtain of caenum.
In the quiet room, Jonas lets out a deep sob.
He hears a knock at the door. “Spahr, can I come in?”
His stomach turns inside out. It’s like a ghost has come back from the dead. Jonas sniffles, wiping away the tears flowing freely down his cheeks. “Yes.”
With a soft creek, Phineas opens the door to the dimly lit room. He moves toward Jonas, but stops when he sees the wetness on his face. They share a look.
“You're crying,” says Phineas. His expression is puzzled, like he’s trying to piece together some new version of the man before him.
Jonas lets out a wet laugh. It occurs to him that he can’t remember the last time he cried. He breaks Phineas’ gaze to look down at his hands. “Not very befitting of the Prime Consector, is it?”
A quiet, pained noise escapes the back of Phineas’ throat. He moves again, sitting down beside Jonas on the bed. “But you’re not the Prime Consector anymore,” he says.
He’s not. He hasn’t been for a while, and yet the title still tries to wrap itself around him like growing mica. It’s all he knows, and it’s over. It’s really over.
“I thought I understood that, but I didn’t. I was still right there in the middle of it, eating what they fed me. I feel like such a fool.”
“I know.”
“I just accepted everything like it was the truth, like it was inevitable, even if I hated it. Like nothing would ever change, so there was no point in trying.”
“I know.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
Without realizing it, Jonas has started crying again. And just like the tears, once the words start flowing, they don’t stop.
“No, Phineas, you don’t know. You don’t know. I grieved– every waking hour. It was all I could think about, how I failed you. You trusted me, and I failed you. And I still thought there was nothing I could do. I kept failing you, even after you died.”
Gently, Phineas takes Jonas by the cheek and brings his head up so that they are eye to eye. Less gently, he takes the man’s hand and places it aside his neck, just above the pulse point.
“I am not dead.”
His gaze is almost too much for Jonas to bare. How can Phineas look at him like that, after all he’s done? After all he’s failed to do? He’s never seen him make such an expression before, not one of admiration, or blind devotion, but something else. Something bigger.
“You’ve changed,” he says.
Phineas sighs. He closes his eyes, and pulls Jonas closer until their foreheads softly touch. They stay like that for a long, quiet moment.
“I don’t know if I ever knew how to be around you,” Phineas whispers, “I wanted your approval, but it wasn’t just that. I wanted to exist outside of you, to experience the world in a way I thought only a Prime Consector could. I wanted to be your equal.”
“Phineas–” Jonas starts, but the man keeps going.
“I thought valor was the only way to get there. So I tried, and tried, but it was never enough. All that valor ever did was create an insurmountable gap that neither of us could bridge. How sad is that?” He takes a shaky breath.
“But then, in a blink of an eye, it was gone. The truths I thought I knew, the context that had shaped me, it had all been meaningless. Just a concept, a system someone made up to weaponize right and wrong. I'm devastated, Jonas. I’ve been freefalling since you left me here. But of this I’m certain: the freedom to choose is something I’m never going to let go of. It’s all I have. And I choose you.”
Jonas lifts his gaze to meet Phineas, tears pooling in both their eyes.
“I’m old.”
“I know.”
“I’ve hurt you so much.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither do I. But I want to figure it out together.”
Jonas doesn’t know what love is supposed to look like. It’s a punch to the gut. But he realizes, more than anything else, that he wants to know. He wants to know what it’s like to love Phineas Thatch. And for a blissful moment, he forgets that valor and caenum ever existed.
“I choose you.”
They kiss, and it’s a good one.