Chapter Text
If Aaron Stowe, the Wanted, had been told that his life had ended up this way, he would not have believed it.
Jokes and warm, friendly conversation filtered through the door as he stood in the kitchen next to Ishibashi, happily shucking applecorn for dinner tonight. There was an abundance of it—realistically, far more than even seven people could eat—and the pile for compost between them was rather astounding. The old man beside him was happily humming along to a song Aaron did not know.
Outside the kitchen, his wife and the other two old scientists sat around the fire. They loudly chatted away about nothing in particular, and Aaron wondered if they had discarded the board game they'd been playing by now. He glanced at the watch around his wrist; Alex and Samheed would be arriving sometime soon. Had he still been a Wanted in Quill, he would've been shocked into a faint at the situation.
But he was not, anymore, and he was eternally grateful that he'd been given the opportunity to open his eyes. He wished he could go back to his younger self, sit him down, and tell him all the wonderful things that the world had to offer outside the walls of Quill.
Sometimes he remembered the hurt he felt back then, and his heart broke. Every day he pushed down his own feelings for the sake of Quill, ignoring his own creativity, his own individuality, his own desires… He'd been miserable, day in and day out, lashing out at others with the excuse that he was simply better than them.
It had taken a long time to piece himself back together into some semblance of a genuine person. The day in the rain, the jungle, the oil press; learning to cook, leaving Quill, journeying beyond the Seven Islands; a dozen other moments of revelation; he hadn't even known he was missing those pieces, when he was young, and now he could not picture himself living without them.
Still, he felt like there was a big piece missing. Like when he looked at himself— No, more like when he thought of himself, something about it didn't quite line up.
Aaron, of course, knew that a person was not immutable. He wondered if he would recognize himself in another ten years. He was no prophet, but of course he could recognize the fact that there was always some new and unknown thing in the future that would change him. Was it wrong to seek it out if he knew it was there?
The problem was, he didn't really know what it was he was looking for, or what that missing piece represented; something just felt off.
"You've got something on your mind, don't you?" Ishibashi asked.
"How can you tell?" Aaron peeled off another piece of the applecorn's husk.
"I'm an old man. I know these things."
Aaron rolled his eyes. "That's not an answer! You can't just 'I'm an old man' your way out of everything."
"How do you know? You're not an old man." He chuckled to himself, and unfortunately for Aaron, he was correct. "So? Come on, say it," Ishibashi urged.
Aaron opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn't find any words. Ishibashi was right that he'd been feeling strange lately, but even he hadn't been able to pin down the feeling quite as rapidly, and he still had no idea where it was coming from.
After a minute of trying and failing to come up with anything, he finally said, "I think it might be an applecorn issue, actually."
Ishibashi laughed, and Aaron found himself smiling, too, as he continued picking out the pieces of silk from between the kernels. He didn't have to be this thorough in cleaning off the applecorn, but he enjoyed the process, so he did it anyways.
Finally Ishibashi collected himself, and he leaned over to pat Aaron on the shoulder. He returned to cleaning off the applecorn in his own hands before asking, "Is it about Kaylee?"
"Nooo, no. I mean, maybe a little bit—but only because I don't want to worry her with my own issues."
"Ah, but your issues will rear their heads regardless."
Aaron sighed, putting the clean applecorn into the slowly-growing pile—mostly Ishibashi's work—and grabbing another one to shuck. "I know, which I guess is why I've been trying to think it over, but I'm struggling to really identify what the issue is."
"There has been a lot going on recently," Ishibashi pointed out.
"Right." It had been well over a year now since the battle against the Revinir and Grimere reuniting back under the black-eyed rulers. It had been almost two since Aaron had officially taken over as the magical beating heart of Artimé—he still refused to call it head mage—and more than three since Thisbe and Fifer had left with Hux in the first place. Everyone was still trying to rebuild their lives; he was hardly the only one feeling strange. All three of his siblings had a myriad of issues each.
Aaron, honestly, had it the easiest out of the four of them. Besides the ever-present weight of the magic spinning from the threads of his soul, his life was nearly perfect. Now that Kaylee knew he was immortal, now that people no longer looked at him with evident disgust, now that his family was no longer in constant danger… It felt good to linger in the soft moments of his everyday life, moreso than it had even before the young dragons had returned.
"But that's why I feel like something's off," Aaron continued, "because I don't really have anything else to hide from, and yet…"
"And yet," Ishibashi echoed with a solemn sigh. He deftly pulled the husk off of another applecorn, tossing the pieces into their compost pile on the floor. "Do you feel as though it's something that needs hiding?"
"I don't know. I want to hide it, hide from it, if that's what you mean—but maybe just because that's what Quill taught me to do." Another clean ear of applecorn into the pile, another new one picked up. "It still feels wrong to focus on myself, but that's the core of this issue."
Ishibashi sighed. "Look, Aaron. I'm an old man—"
"I never would've been able to tell."
Ishibashi shot him a glare, frozen in place with one hand poised to monologue. "Don't interrupt me," he said, but he grinned all the same. He cleared his throat and continued, "And as an old man, I can tell you from experience that being content with yourself is the key to staying sane. Especially with our everlasting lives. You've got all the time in the world to figure this out, but there's no point in putting it off."
Ishibashi reached for another ear to shuck and found the pile empty. With a shrug, he said, "It looks like we're done here. I'll leave you to your work."
Aaron nodded and grabbed the broom from where it was leaning against the counter to start collecting up all the husks. Ishibashi hopped off the stool he'd been sitting on and carried it back out of the kitchen—the conversation outside quickly picked back up again, sprinkled with laughter. He'd clean up, then start on dinner, and join them; whatever this weirdness was, it could wait one night more. As Ishibashi had said: he had all the time in the world.