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Clive takes the recording crystal from Dawn. No one argues. No one asks for it. No one even seems to notice.
A buzz of excitement vibrates through the team. The shock, the relief, of seeing Jason, of hearing his voice and knowing he’s still alive, is overwhelming. Clive can hardly blame his team for not noticing when he secrets away the proof of it, nor can he blame them for never asking after the crystal again.
Jason is alive. What use have they for the cheap, magical imitation when the real man would be with them soon anyways?
Clive speaks with Dawn, their conversation about the Astral almost enough to distract him before she notices.
“We can talk about this later,” she says after a while. A smile curves her lips, creases her eyes. She looks at the pocket where Clive holds Jason’s image. She knows.
Clive clears his throat, reflexively arguing.
“No no, this is all quite interesting. I’m eager to learn about anything you can share. It’s not every day I get to talk to a diamond rank agent of the World-Phoenix.”
“We will talk about this later,” Dawn corrects, a crimson eyebrow raises. She knows. “Learning that your teammate is alive is no small thing- enjoy it.”
With that, she walks away to join the diamond ranker who’d come with Gary. His back straightens when Dawn sits next to him.
Clive’s attention is wrested away by his teammates, and he talks, theorizes, plans, even as the knowledge that Jason is alive circulates through his body like a potent stamina potion- alighting his nerves until he can feel his every molecule vibrating.
Jason is alive.
The crystal becomes a balm. Clive is zealous as he works, meticulously finalizing steps to a plan to bring out the cultists. A plan that, once enacted and completed, would bring Jason back to him.
Day and night become one, time passes like the endless flow of a river. Fluidly, seamlessly, broken only when his limbs begin to ache with exhaustion and his mind begins to spin.
In that damned astral space, a lifetime ago now, Jason would force him to take a break in those moments. He would offer him a sandwich, or a hidden leftover slice cake. Jason might even take him by hand, leading Clive to his room- right next door to Jason’s own- like a child. Jason would then head back down, picking up the notes where Clive had left off and muddle through them. Organize them. Turn his thoughts into something that made just a little bit more sense.
Now, all Clive has is the crystal. A treasure compared to what he had before, but still not enough. He would watch it maybe two, three, six times, tracing the contours of Jason’s face, memorizing the prominence of his chin and the new shades of his eyes. He would catalogue every change silver rank had brought and listen to his voice. The rises and dips of his syllables, the last vestiges of the too-perfect tone his racial skill had given him, the careful enunciation of his name as he addresses Clive- and only Clive- directly.
“Clive, I know you’ve got questions but stop interrupting. People are trying to listen to the recording. Be courteous and wait,” Clive hears again. He rewinds.
“Clive, I know you’ve got questions.”
Rewind.
“Clive, I know-“
Rewind.
“Clive.”
Rewind.
“Clive.”
Rewind.
“Clive.”
And if Clive falls asleep, listening to his name, repeated in the jovial, scolding tone of Jason, no one aside from him has to know.
The walls between their rooms are only so thick.
It only takes one night- or was it afternoon- where Clive, body heavy with the weight of a week of sleepless nights, forgets his room’s privacy screen.
By the time Clive wakes up, the entire team knows.
Humphrey is the one they elect to talk to him.
He shows up at the door to the study, face impassive in the way that meant Humphrey was uncomfortable and shoulders pulled back in his “we need to talk” stance. He clears his throat at the door.
There are four books open on Clive’s desk. One stacked upon two, the other off to the side as a reference. His notes, hastily scribbled, had become both a tablecloth and rug. Matching, if not mind numbing, décor.
Belinda would organize them if Clive asked, although her knowledge of astral magic, even after years of being Clive’s assistant, pales next to Jason’s.
Outside the window behind him, Clive can hear street vendors selling spices and baskets and pastries. The denizens of Vitesse shout back, haggling prices. The scent of some cinnamon pastry wafts through the window and Clive’s stomach growls. He’d only had something of the sort once, Jason had brought cinnamon rolls to him while he was still an official at the magic society, but the cinnamon sweetness still seems to linger on his tongue.
Clive eats a silver coin, the fizzing as it dissolves seems to burn his mouth.
Humphrey just watches, letting his presence fill the room, ominously. His eyes roam the sea of notes before they meet Clive’s.
“Yes?” Clive snaps.
Humphrey shifts, setting his shoulders back a little more.
“You have the recording crystal. Of Jason’s message to us.”
Clive’s mouth dries, his face dropping into impassiveness. It feels like an accusation.
“I do.” Clive thinks of the crystal, permanently housed in the player next to his bed. His hand tightens around his pen. “Do you need it?”
“No,” Humphrey says, and seems to struggle with the words. “But you… do?”
Humphrey phrases the last part like a question and Clive’s defenses rise. He raises an eyebrow and Humphrey deflates.
“I- we- are just worried about you. We’re all excited to have Jason back, but recognize that it’s going to take a while. We’re all doing our best, pushing ourselves, but rest is important as well and… Belinda said that you’re usually very organized.”
Clive’s lips thin, his pen snapping in his hand. The ink spills over the notes he’d been taking. Clive jumps to contain it, swearing, and Humphrey offers a handkerchief, but the paper he’d been working on is lost. Swallowed into the void of the ink.
“Anything else?” Clive asks, staring at the black abyss of what had been, admittedly sparse, notes.
Humphrey places a large hand on Clive’s shoulder, the size a weighted blanket- more comforting than it had any right to be. Clive’s shoulders rise defensively before slumping in exhaustion.
“We will get him back,” Humphrey says, voice soft.
Clive nods. Humphrey leaves.
After a few more hours, Clive takes another break. His limbs feel fresh, his eyelids light, but his mind is a storm.
Neil, Humphrey, and Sophie’s eyes follow him as he walks to his room, and when he shuts the door, he remembers a privacy barrier.
The projector and the crystal are sitting where he left them, next to his bed, and when he lays down, he closes his eyes and plays it again. He doesn’t need to watch to know what faces Jason is making as he speaks. He’s seen it enough times to know.
And when he falls asleep, all he can hear is Jason saying his name, and all he can see is Jason’s image, imprinted across the dark chasm of his destroyed notes.