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A tavern with dim lighting, where the only visible light is that of the fire and images of people huddled in a circle in the thick storm that rages outside the windows. Twisted Fate was standing near the fireplace, absent-mindedly playing with a pack of cards. However, his eyes were not on the game. They were fixed deeper, into something much more ancient.
“I descend from this loneliness.”
A song played in the background, barely audible above the noise of the crackling fire. The singer’s lyrics also heard about loss and a broken heart. Fate was enveloped by them, with each word penetrating into him as deeply as it could. Graves was in the opposite side of the room, a glass of whiskey in his hand trained at Fate and centered on him. Their was silence, a void yet filled with so much hate that should not have existed—regrets, pain, nostalgia.
“Looks like you are still in the past Graves’ voice was shaky, cutting through the silence its owner’s rough but revealing something softer, which he rarely showed.’, “Were these traits of him going to come out again?”
But you never seem to leave it behind. ”Twisted Fate’s hand stilled, which produced a sound of card shuffling. This continued until he retaliatorily punched the card face down on the table.
‘This is not about the past, Dear,’ he replied quietly, although both of them knew it was more than that.
‘…I spread things on chalked ground’...’’
Graves made a derisive sound. “You can’t quit this cycle, can you? You keep on keeping the... costumes you are so over in scraps. Like a party at which you don’t have fun.” His face darkened, and so did his posture. “But it does bother me.”
Fate avoided his gaze, concentrating instead on the empty cards before him, as if they would direct him on what course to take next.
"There are mere daydreams torturing me."
The song’s lyrics lingered in the room with Fate as if they had just landed. It was so close. So real.
Graves reclined on the most comfort sitting chair has to offer, but his eyes still managed to fix on Fate without much of a discernible movement. “What the hell are we doing here? You sit here and pretend to be playing this game with us, like you don’t know the outcome?”
Twisted Fate's features contorted, but it was not a smile. It was something like a grimace. He placed the cards on the table, the fire sizzling and the cards casting shadows across it.
"Often clipped photographs in newspapers with leaves."
“Like I don’t know how it ends? I have always known it.” Each breath felt like a weight on his voice, scratching and cracking even.
With a loud noise, Graves placed his glass on the table. The room was eerily quiet. “Then why do you keep treating me like I am a fucking scrap of paper? Do you think I’ve been here all this time only to be ignored?”
“I'll throw you on a confetti-keeping fabric.”
Fate felt his hands move over the cards as his head dove. “Perhaps that was the reason,” he muttered warily, even lower than before. “You were a passtime.” His heart was racing, but those words tasted painful in his mouth. Still, he could not help them.
Graves stood up too quickly, causing his chair to overturn. That fierce look in his eyes was undeniable. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he cursed, taking a step further. ‘Don’t you dare say this was nothing.’
Fate resisted the urge to back down. He held Graves’ challenging stare and felt the rising ember between them. ‘Then what is it, huh?’ he went on, pulse quickening. ‘What are we, Dar? We keep firing cannons at each other, and for what?’
“I shoot cannonballs; it’s useless because there is a grandvizier."
Graves heard him and let out a heavy sigh. He lowered his heavy shoulders. “Maybe ‘cause of us, I mean you and me do not know how to stop,” he confided. “But that don’t mean we give up.”
Twisted Fate’s stare fell on the cards yet again as his thoughts raced around and his heart felt constricted.
“I wanted to use, who knows, a straitjacket or a condom."
He let out a quiet and bitter chuckle. “I considered it, you know? Taking all this and doing something crazy. Putting it all away. But this will not change anything, would it?
Graves turned his head sideways and inched forward so that they were nearly brushing against each other. “Nah, it won’t. I mean, we are not going to solve the problem esteeming the power of words only.”
"But I won't tease on us by merely a cigarette."
Twisted Fate considered him, the cards that he was dealing with falling from his remaining hand, his attention caught completely by him. The wind howled and lightning flashed outside but inside, there was a peculiar silence that existed between the two. A silence that had never been before. A silence that felt like the stillness that engulfed everything after a deathly fight.
He set his jaw, the pause only serving to distance their spirits, making it virtually impossible to bridge the gap of feelings held within them.
“Nor i will kiss you spending my lipstick.”
"We have been wastin too much time, he concluded, wearied advancing a half-hearted smile, which did not carry any true happiness.
Graves gave a light laugh but there was a sadness in his smile. “Or perhaps we've been wastin’ too much, even much more than that.” His tone fell some degrees, acquiring a more somber mood. “Ay, but I'm not ready to just give this up. Not to this extent. Not with all this.”
Twisted Fate looked at him intently, the cards falling out of his hands and forgotten. The wind and rain outside were ferocious, but within the confines of the room, there existed an odd stillness that was shared between them. One that had never been there in the past. One that resembled the silence that envelops the audience after a very long and grueling contest.
“Now I catch a truck. In the ring I am knocked out once more.”
Graves took a breath and stepped back a little, offering Fate the space he needed to breathe.
“Forever I've been chained to your ankle.”
"I am always running back to you," he said, his tone raw but sincere.
"My twenty years of "boy, that's over, baby."
“We changed a lot after the years,” he chuckled faintly, the laugh filled with resignation. "Yes, as expected, the two of us matured eventually."
Graves nodded and his expression softened.
“Freud explains,”
"I can't explain us," he murmured almost unconsciously as the two bore a long silence that felt quite oppressive.
Fate opened his eyes, turned to Graves, and locked his gaze with his once more. “But perhaps we needn’t find an explanation,” he said, barely audible. “Perhaps we just need to stop running away from it.”
“As for the confetti cloth, my carnival is past.”
Fate tried to swallow the lump that formed in his throat and felt his heart racing. “Perhaps I have already over-dramatized the situation,” he mumbled but a small part of him did not want to acknowledge it.
Graves was shaking his head with a softness to his eyes as a contradictory determination prevailed. "It's not too late,” he pronounced. “It is never too late, for us.”
After an eternity, Twisted Fate thought that it was appropriate to entertain the idea. The cards were irrelevant; the games were irrelevant. What was important was right before him—had always been right in front of him.
''And furthermore, I’m leaving."
“Also,” he said, “I am going to leave.”
However, instead of leaving, Fate took a step closer, his hand finding Graves’. "I'm not leavin’,” he murmured.
Their eyes met, and for those few seconds everything else ceased to exist. In that moment, Fate could feel the electricity hanging in the air between them, and before he could think twice about it, he bridged the divide, kissing Graves’ lips softly and tentatively.
It was tentative to start with, a soft meeting of lips, gauging. But like there was no stopping the tsunami, which was now in motion, it became intense, borne out of years of guarded desire and unrealized tales. Fate felt Graves’ hands at his waist, tugging him towards himself, ensuring that he was present for this moment.
''And furthermore, I’m leaving."
He was, however, not going anywhere—not now, not ever.
As they broke apart, both struggling to catch their breath, Graves held Fate's gaze, relief and joy washing over him. “Guess we ain’t runnin’ anymore, huh?” he said, easing himself into a warm, genuine smile that easily broke the tension that was on his face.
Fate returned the smile, feeling much more at ease than he has in many years. “Nah. Not anymore.”
And in the swinging light of the saloon while the rain continued pouring outside, they sought comfort in each other.