Chapter Text
A certain Red Glove member stood silently under the crimson moonlight, looking unusually lost for someone who usually carried himself as though he knew exactly what he was doing. His coat had already found its way onto the nearest chair, leaving him in nothing but the thin shirt underneath. Under the dim lamplight, the pale fabric did very little to hide the skin beneath.
Leonard Mitchell had meant to keep going. Undo the rest of the buttons, change, perhaps get some sleep. Did something ordinary, what he usually did. Instead, somewhere between one button and the next, he had simply... stopped.
His fingers were still resting against his collar, loosely holding the next button as if he'd forgotten what he was supposed to do with it.
The ancient angel in his head was still talking. Had been for several minutes, actually. Leonard only knew about it because every now and then the old man's voice rose with that familiar edge it took whenever Pallez realized he wasn't being properly listened to.
Leonard, indeed, had hummed something back once or twice, agreeing to whatever the old man was saying. Ha! He had no idea what he'd agreed to.
Normally, that would've been enough to earn Pallez a lazy apology, perhaps even a joke if Leonard was in the mood for one. Tonight, though, he couldn't quite find it in himself.
His attention had been elsewhere from the moment he returned. For a while, he simply stared at nothing. Then a quiet breath slipped through his nose, almost a laugh but not quite.
Of course.
His lips curved anyway. There was little amusement in it. He knew exactly where his mind had gone.
Far, far away from this room.
Back above the gray fog.
Back to the Tarot gathering.
Back to that empty chair.
My Blessed, The World, has entered a deep slumber.
That was what The Fool had told him. No. Not him.
Leonard almost laughed at himself.
There had been no private message. No special summons, no quiet word meant for Leonard Mitchell alone. It had been an announcement, nothing more, delivered to all of them around that long bronze table.
And why would it have been anything else?
Leonard had never asked The Fool to tell him separately.
He hadn't reacted badly at the time. Hadn't asked questions. Hadn't let himself stare too long at The World's empty chair.
The Star had simply sat there and accepted the painful fact that, once again, Leonard Mitchell was the one being left behind.
His fingers finally gave up on the second button.
The old man was still talking somewhere at the back of his mind. Something about caution, Leonard thought. Or perhaps he had moved on to something else entirely. Either way, when Leonard offered no response this time, Pallez fell quiet. The sudden absence of his voice made the room feel larger than it was.
Leonard lowered himself onto the edge of the bed.
Outside the window, the crimson moon hung low over Backlund, half-veiled behind the drifting clouds. His eyes settled on it for a while, then somewhere beyond it, though there was nothing there he could actually see.
The world was right outside his window. Yet his mind went to The World instead, the one person who carried that name. The man who had once stood beside him as though there had been nothing strange about it.
Once.
Leonard's gaze lingered on the moon.
There were places Klein could go now that Leonard couldn't follow. Things he carried that Leonard wasn't strong enough to help him carry, no matter how much he wanted to.
The distance between them had grown so quietly that sometimes Leonard forgot it was there at all.
Until Klein disappeared again.
Leonard rubbed absently at the heel of his palm.
Ah.
Should he be thinking of him as He now?
A faint, humorless smile touched his lips. Maybe. Yet it still felt strange.
Beyond the window came the muffled roll of carriage wheels over the street below. Leonard listened until the sound faded, then let his gaze fall to the coat he'd abandoned on the chair.
He might be an angel now, a Blessed standing closer to divinity than Leonard could properly comprehend, but somewhere in Leonard's mind, stubbornly and perhaps a little selfishly, he was still just Klein.
Klein.
The man Leonard adored more than he could ever admit, even to himself. The man who ... never seemed to wait for him.
And no matter how hard Leonard ran after him, no matter how desperately he tried to close the distance between them, somehow, he was always one step or maybe more, too late.
It wasn't as though Klein ever needed him.
That was simply a fact.
An unpleasant one, perhaps, but a fact all the same.
It shouldn't have bothered him.
Yet it did.
Leonard leaned forward, resting his forearms loosely over his thighs. His half-undone collar fell open a little more with the movement, baring what the thin fabric had hidden beneath. The night air brushed cool against his skin. He noticed. Yet he simply couldn't bring himself to care.
Funny. Perhaps he was finally learning from Klein: Leave things as they were. Don't look too closely at what was left behind.
The thought was unfair. Leonard knew that. Still, something unpleasant tightened in his chest about this predicament.
Disappointment? Maybe. Hurt? Leonard almost laughed at himself. Ha! As if could say this condition as a predicament!
Did he even have the right to be hurt by an Angel's decision?
A quiet laugh slipped from his lips, "Really. What were you hoping for, Leonard?" His voice sounded strangely out of place in the room. He shook his head, letting out a helpless sigh as one hand dragged loosely through his hair. "You really don't learn, do you?"
Then, suddenly there was a crimson light came before he could answer himself.
It spilled soundlessly across the floor, climbed the edge of the bed, then washed over his half-undressed figure in one sudden sweep.
Leonard's head snapped up. He gasped, "What the—" his mind went completely blank. Then the familiar pull caught him. "Wait, what?!"
His bedroom dissolved before his eyes.
*
That oh so familiar pull came first.
Leonard barely had time to register it before the bedroom dropped away from him. The lamplight blurred. The floor vanished from beneath his feet, and for one brief, unpleasant second, there was nothing to stand on at all.
Then came the gray fog. And as suddenly it came, it swallowed everything. His room, the window, the crimson moon outside. Even the voice of the old man in his head seemed to fall somewhere far behind as Leonard was pulled through that strange, weightless space he'd gone through countless times before.
The green eyed man knew what was happening.
That didn't make it any less disorienting when he'd been sitting on the edge of his bed only a heartbeat ago.
And then, just as quickly, there was something solid beneath him again—a chair.
Leonard blinked. What?
The fog was already thinning around him, and the ancient palace slowly came back into view. Tall pillars rose into the haze overhead, their ends lost somewhere beyond sight. The long, mottled bronze table stretched before him, surrounded by the familiar high-backed chairs, while above it all hung that strange darkness that wasn't quite night and had never really looked like a sky either.
Almost instinctively, Leonard steadied himself with one hand against the bronze table. The surface was solid beneath his palm, unlike the last fading traces of his bedroom still lingering at the edge of his vision.
He looked down. At his chair.
Then around.
Leonard's brief indulgence in self-pity was forgotten almost immediately, they was blown away by the sheer bewilderment. He stared at the table he'd left only minutes ago and blinked.
"... Huh?"
For a moment, Leonard simply sat there, still trying to catch up with the fact that he was back above the gray fog.
Then a faint chill brushed across the exposed skin beneath his collar. That, made the green eyed man paused, his eyes droped and he saw—
Oh.
Right.
In the confusion of being pulled away from his room, he'd completely forgotten about the state he was in. How his clothes was, to be exact. It hadn't mattered when he was alone in his bedroom with only an ancient angel sharing the privacy of his thoughts. Here, however, was another matter entirely.
Leonard glanced toward the head of the bronze table.
Then immediately his fingers went to his shirt. He buttoned it up without much thought, straightened the collar, then ran a palm over the front to smooth out the worst of the wrinkles.
Better.
Not quite presentable, definitely. His coat was still draped over a chair in his bedroom, his red glove too, he tossed them somewhere far below the gray fog. So, there wasn't much he could do about that now. Leonard gave his bare sleeves a brief look. Well. This would have to do.
Mr. Fool would not mind.
He rested one hand against the bronze table and finally let himself look around properly.
The gathering had ended. And now, somehow, he was here again.
Why?
Leonard straightened without thinking, his shoulders tightening as his attention sharpened. His gaze went to the head of the table.
Mr. Fool was still there.
Alone.
Leonard had seen Him sitting there countless times before, always at the same end of the long bronze table, always half-hidden behind the gray fog. There was nothing unusual about it. Except there was no one else this time. The chairs between them sat empty. No voices, no rustle of clothes, no one shifting in their seat or waiting for their turn to speak. Just the long stretch of bronze separating The Star from the figure at its head.
Somehow, the distance felt longer without everyone else there.
Leonard hesitated.
"Mr. Fool?"
The figure at the head of the table didn't answer immediately.
Leonard waited.
He had become quite good at waiting in here. There were rules for speaking to great existences, even benevolent ones, and one of those rules was generally don’t start rambling because the silence makes you nervous. He’d learned that one through experience. Unfortunately, the silence continued.
Leonard shifted in his chair. Had he done something? That was the highest possibility. But what?
He quickly reviewed the gathering again. He hadn’t said anything disrespectful. Nothing unusually disrespectful, anyway. He had completed his tasks. He hadn’t concealed anything important.
As far as he knew, though.
But what if—
The ex-Tingen's Nighthawk stopped the thought before it could run too far. There was no point sitting here frightening himself when he could simply ask.
“Is something wrong?” he tried, cautiously probing for some hint of this Great Being's intention.
“No.”
Leonard waited for the rest.
There was no rest.
“… I see,” he said quietly, accepting the state he was in.
But—
I did not see! Not at all! What should I see?! Please elaborate! Why am I here?, he begged silently.
Leonard glanced around the empty palace, as though an explanation might be hiding somewhere among the vacant chairs.
“Is there another task for me, Mr. Fool?”
“No.”
His gaze returned to the figure at the head of the table. His green eyes were full of questions now, along with a touch of wariness he couldn't quite hide.
Another task would have made sense. Apparently, that wasn't it.
Then perhaps it had something to do with his other responsibilities.
“Something regarding the Church, then?” he asked cautiously. “Or the Goddess?”
“No.”
Then what?! Leonard tried his best not to shout at the silent God. He rubbed his thumb slowly against the side of his index finger, buying himself a few seconds to think, to relax his mind. Mr. Fool remained perfectly still at the other end of the table, offering absolutely nothing that might help.
Right. Maybe this was a test.
Leonard shifted in his chair.
He hated tests where no one bothered to provide the questions. At least written exams had the decency to tell him what he was supposed to answer.
He looked at Mr. Fool again, finally giving up on guessing. "Then ..." This time, he chose his words a little more carefully, trying to take the edge off what was otherwise a rather blunt question. “May I ask why You've summoned me back, Mr. Fool?”
This time, Mr. Fool didn't answer at all.
Leonard waited, expecting at least another painfully short response.
Instead, the gray mist shifted at the other end of the table.
Nothing unusual at first. The fog never stayed completely still. It moved as it pleased, curling lazily around the pillars or spilling over the bronze surface before drifting elsewhere. Leonard had seen it often enough to barely notice anymore.
His gaze might have moved on if the mist hadn't suddenly trembled.
The slow, aimless current broke. For a brief moment, the fog seemed to draw inward before peeling away again, strand by thin strand.
The black haired man's fingers stopped their restless movement. His eyes followed the retreating mist toward the head of the table.
Something was different.
His gaze traveled along the drifting mist until it reached the figure at the head of the table, and a strange uneasiness slowly crept up his back.
The fog surrounding Mr. Fool was moving too. Not drifting this time. Not shifting with the rest of the gray mist.
It was pulling away from Him.
... wh—wait wait wait!
Leonard stared for perhaps half a second before every bit of Beyonder instinct he'd accumulated over the years finally kicked in. His gaze dropped sharply to the bronze table, as silently he cursed under his breath.
There were things one simply did not look at. He knew that better than most.
A symbol seen at the wrong moment, knowledge obtained before one's mind was ready for it, the true form of something too high in Sequence. Curiosity was useful until it wasn't, and Leonard had survived long enough to develop at least some respect for the thin line between wanting to know and knowing far too much.
One of them was the name of God. And of course, their majestic mystical being. One wrong movement and bang! Leonard would definitely be corrupted.
One of a deity was sitting in front of him right now.
And yet, for reasons Leonard couldn't begin to understand, that deity appeared to be removing the one thing that had always kept His appearance hidden.
What the fuck just happened? Why?! His throat suddenly felt a little dry. Why now? Leonard swallowed, but it did very little to help.
“Mr. Fool?”
For a moment, there was only the slow movement of the fog between them.
Then came the answer.
“Look.”
The voice was neither loud nor harsh. It didn't need to be. There was a quiet weight behind it that Leonard had learned long ago not to mistake for gentleness.
Leonard's fingers pressed harder against the edge of the table. He stayed exactly where he was. And definetely, he did not dare to look.
Of all the answers he'd been trying to drag out of Mr. Fool tonight, that had not been one of them. A task, an order, even another cryptic sentence he would have to spend the rest of the night figuring out, he could accept. But ... what? Look? At Him?
Even with permission. Especially with permission, no! He didn't want to die yet!
Leonard's eyes remained lowered. The silence stretched again.
Then the voice from the other end of the table came once more.
“Leonard.”
His fingers went still. A shiver ran over his skin, quick enough to raise goosebumps along his arms. Leonard's eyes widened before he could stop them.
What did He just call him?
Not The Star.
Leonard.
His own name shouldn't have sounded strange. Yet something about hearing it from across that table caught at a part of him he couldn't immediately place.
Something old.
Something painfully familiar.
He raised his head.
Slowly.
The gray veil had already grown thin enough for something darker to show through. Hair, Leonard realized first. Dark hair, neatly kept, painfully ordinary against everything else about this palace.
The fog continued to withdraw.
A forehead came into view next. Then the line of a cheek.
Nothing happened. No divine pressure crushed Leonard into his chair. His spirituality didn't scream a warning. He wasn't struck blind or mad or dead, which Leonard privately considered a rather encouraging start. 50%, maybe, he would still be okay after all this.
Then he saw His eyes: Brown.
Leonard's breath caught. His fingers went still against the table for one strange second. So did his thoughts.
He knew that color. No, no. That was ridiculous! There were probably millions of people with brown eyes.
There was absolutely no reason for his heart to have suddenly struck his ribs hard enough to hurt.
Then ... more of His face appeared.
The bridge of a nose. The familiar shape of the mouth beneath it.
Features Leonard had once seen nearly every day and had spent far too many years afterward remembering when he shouldn't.
His breath stopped somewhere in his chest.
A certain thought came quietly this time. Not disbelief. More like his mind asking for another second before it was forced to understand what his eyes already had.
The last of the fog slipped away.
Leonard didn't move.
He couldn't.
Because he knew that face.
He knew it smiling awkwardly over breakfast. Knew it pale with exhaustion after a mission. Knew it beneath the ridiculous seriousness Klein used to wear when pretending the rest of them weren't getting on his nerves. He knew it from Tingen, from memories he'd carried far longer than he'd ever intended to. And he also knew it from a coffin.
For one terrible second, that was the image his mind chose to give him.
Then Leonard blinked, and that man was still there.
Alive.
Watching him from the other end of the bronze table.
Leonard forgot to breathe.
Something struck hard beneath his ribs, one heavy beat that seemed to shake the air from his lungs. His fingers tightened against the edge of the table. He could feel the cold bronze beneath his palm, could hear his own pulse somewhere too close to his ears, but none of it was enough to pull his eyes away from that face.
His throat tightened.
Klein?
For several seconds, that was the only thought his mind could hold.
Not Mr. Fool.
Not The World.
Just Klein.
The same dark hair. The same brown eyes. The same face Leonard had carried in his memory through a grave, a funeral, and all the impossible things that came after.
And now it was here. Right in front of him.
Leonard drew in a breath, or tried to. It caught halfway and left something trembling strangely in his chest.
Then his mind finally began to catch up a somehow unbelievable theory: Klein Moretti was ... Sherlock. Then ... The World was Gehrman Sparrow, and Gehrman was Klein before he was ... The Fool's Blessed.
His gaze dropped to the seat beneath Klein.
The head of the table.
The place Mr. Fool had occupied every single time Leonard had come above the gray fog.
His heart gave another hard, unpleasant thud.
Slowly, he looked back up.
The Fool.
Leonard swallowed. His mouth had gone dry.
Of course.
Of fucking course!
He should have known there would be another one.
And yet, underneath the disbelief, the confusion, and the rapidly growing urge to demand an explanation for several years' worth of nonsense, something else had begun to stir.
Small. Warm. Almost painful.
Klein was here. In front of him.
Leonard hadn't missed him this time.
Wait.
The relief lasted barely a heartbeat before fear crept in behind it.
What if this wasn't even real? What if all of this just—
Leonard's fingers tightened against the table again. He didn't want to follow that thought, but once it appeared, it refused to leave. His state of mind had hardly been stable tonight. Mr. Fool knew that. Perhaps this face was only something meant to calm him, an illusion pulled from memories Leonard had never quite managed to bury. Something he wanted badly enough to believe.
Before the thought could twist any further, a familiar voice crossed the vast palace.
“No. It's not like that.”
Leonard's head snapped up.
For the first time, he looked straight at the figure sitting at the head of the table. Not at the chair. Not at the fog that was no longer there.
At him.
At Klein.
Those brown eyes met his without anything between them.
Leonard felt his own begin to sting.
His lips parted. There were a dozen things he could have asked, probably better things, but none of them made it past the tightness in his throat.
Only one did.
“Klein...” His voice caught embarrassingly on the name. He swallowed and tried again, softer this time. “Are you real?”
Klein's expression changed. Only slightly. The severity around his eyes eased, and when he answered, the voice that had carried the weight of Mr. Fool only moments ago sounded much simpler.
Much more familiar.
“Yes.”
Leonard didn't move.
Klein watched him for another moment before adding, quietly, “I'm really here, Leonard.”
Silence settled between them once more.
Klein remained where he was at the other end of the table, watching the Red Glove with surprising patience, apparently willing to give Leonard as much time as he needed to put his thoughts back in order.
For several seconds, Leonard gave him nothing.
Then his expression suddenly changed.
The wet shine in his green eyes remained, but his brows slowly drew together. The emotion that had tightened his face only moments ago gave way to confusion. His gaze dropped to the chair beneath Klein.
Then moved to the empty chair belonging to The World.
Back to Klein again.
His eyes widened.
Wait!
Klein watched the realization happen in real time.
Whatever tender moment had existed between them was apparently over.
Leonard stared at him with an expression that, for lack of a kinder description, could only be called genuine disbelief.
His lips parted.
“... Seriously?”
The Fool chuckled then, “That's your reaction?”
“I'm thinking.”
A sigh, soft, almost lost in the vastness of the palace, but Leonard heard it. Oh, he definitely heard it. “You don't look like you're thinking.” A sarcasm.
Leonard stared at him. As deathly as possible.
Klein stared back.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
There he was, seated at the head of the bronze table with all the presence of a mighty existence, ancient palace and endless gray fog behind him, looking every bit like the deity Leonard had known as Mr. Fool.
Except for the face. And that look in his eyes that was becoming less godly by the second.
Leonard's lips twitched.
Klein's eyes narrowed at that. And that humanly movement, made it worse.
His mighty being in Leonard mind finally cracked.
Something in Leonard finally gave.
He leaned back in his chair and laughed.
The first sound came out rougher than expected, catching somewhere in his throat before breaking free. Another followed. Leonard lifted one hand and draped it over his eyes, his palm warm against his face as he tried, unsuccessfully, to decide what exactly was so funny.
His shoulders shook once.
This was ridiculous. Or horrifying. Possibly both.
His body seemed equally undecided. His heart was still going too fast, his breathing hadn't quite settled, yet there was something almost weightless underneath it all that made another helpless laugh slip through his fingers.
What was he even supposed to call this?
Relief? Shock? The sudden desire to cross the table and strangle a deity with his bare hands?
That last one felt dangerously close.
“Klein ...” he tried again. The name came out softer than he intended. And that, somehow, quieted him.
Two syllables. Familiar on his tongue in a way Mr. Fool had never been. He had called that name across the office in Tingen, muttered it in annoyance, laughed it out more times than he could remember. Later, he'd learned what it felt like to say it when there was no one around to answer.
Leonard's fingers shifted slightly against his face. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed saying it and hearing something back.
“Yes.” This time, though, the answer came without hesitation.
Leonard's hand slowly fell away.
Klein hadn't moved. He simply sat there, brown eyes on Leonard, waiting through every laugh, every failed sentence, every second Leonard needed to make sense of him.
For once, Klein Moretti was actually not leaving him behind without telling him.
*
Leonard looked at him for a long while, the last of his laughter slowly dying away. His breathing had settled, at least. His thoughts were another matter.
His gaze dropped to the high-backed chair Klein was sitting in. He knew that chair. Everyone in the Tarot Club knew that chair. The Fool's chair. Leonard stared at it for a second before something tugged at the edge of his mind, drawing his attention further down the length of the bronze table.
There, The World's chair stood empty.
Leonard went still. He looked at the chair, then at Klein, then back to the chair again. Klein was watching him now, and the longer Leonard stared between the two, the deeper the crease between his brows became.
Okay, he wanted to make sure something now.
He lifted one finger and pointed at Klein. “You.”
“Me.”
His finger moved toward the empty chair. “And him.”
Klein glanced over, although there was absolutely no need to check which him Leonard meant. “Also me.”
Leonard's finger came slowly back around. “And ...” He trailed off.
The corner of Klein's mouth moved.
“Yes.”
Leonard lowered his hand to the table and fell quiet. Oh so his theory was right. Klein Moretti was The World. The World was Gehrman Sparrow. And Klein Moretti was sitting in The Fool's chair.
Fine. Leonard could work with that. Probably.
Then several years' worth of Tarot gatherings came crashing back into his memory at once.
His eyes widened. “Oh my Goddess!”
Across the table, Klein's expression shifted just a little at the mentioned other God in his domain.
Leonard didn't notice though. He was already far too occupied with the much more alarming realization that had just occurred to him. His eyes widened. He began remember things! A detailed version of all his tarot gatherings.
The long bronze table. Mr. Fool at its head. The World several seats away, speaking through that distorted voice while Mr. Fool listened with all the patience of an ancient existence. Then answered.
Leonard felt his mouth fall slightly open.
No way. No fucking way right? But!!
He leaned forward, one palm settling against the bronze table.
“So, Klein...” The name came out almost sweetly.
Klein looked at him.
A terrible mistake.
The corner of Leonard's mouth curled upward, that familiar, troublesome glint returning to his green eyes as he tilted his head.
“All this time,” he drawled, enjoying every word now, “you were talking to yourself?”
Klein went still.
Leonard pointed at the empty seat belonging to The World, his finger almost accusing now.
“All those gatherings.”
“Leonard.”
The poet barely heard the warning in his name. His mind was already running backward through years of memories, picking them apart with an enthusiasm it had somehow failed to produce for the much more important revelation.
“The World would speak, then you would answer,” he began, the words coming faster now as one memory dragged another along with it.
Klein's expression tightened. “That's what you took from this?”
It was a reasonable attempt to stop him. Unfortunately, Leonard was no longer interested in being reasonable.
“You held entire conversations with yourself.”
Klein gave him a long, flat look. It was becoming increasingly clear that he had underestimated just how long Leonard intended to pursue this particular line of thought.
Still, he answered with remarkable patience. “There were reasons.”
Leonard's brows climbed higher. Oh, there were reasons. When would Klein do something without one, though? Somehow, this answer only made it worse.
And so, Leonard, apparently, had found another way to torment him. Of course he would never let this moment go without do something!
He said then, with a serious face, “You asked yourself questions, like the devoted Blessed you were.” and a moment later a grin appeared, "you remember?"
“I was maintaining separate identities.”
Leonard was already preparing another reply when a particularly convenient memory surfaced. His expression brightened at once.
“Oh, you even thanked yourself!”
Before Klein could stop him, Leonard cleared his throat and straightened in his chair.
Putting on his best imitation of Gehrman Sparrow's low, solemn manner, he intoned, “Thank you for Your guidance, Mr. Fool.” He even dipped his head respectfully, holding the pose for a beat before looking up again.
Then Gehrman Sparrow vanished, and Leonard was Leonard once more, the mischief plain in those lively green eyes.
“So, technically speaking ...” The corner of his mouth curled. “You were guiding yourself on what to do?”
Klein went quiet.
For a moment, he simply stared across the table at Leonard, and there was something in that stare that felt remarkably close to Are you ever going to stop?
Leonard, unfortunately, had only just gotten started.
Klein's mouth tightened at the corners. He said nothing for a moment, then simply closed his eyes, as though shutting Leonard out of sight might also, by some miracle, make him stop talking.
It didn't.
The laughter had already begun somewhere low in Leonard's chest.
He felt it coming and bit down on the inside of his cheek, fighting the twitch at the corner of his mouth. The pressure that had been sitting beneath his ribs ever since the fog disappeared had changed somehow.
It was no longer only shock, or fear, or that aching relief he still didn't quite know what to do with. Now there was amusement tangled into it too, warm and dangerously close to spilling over.
No. Hold it, Leonard.
He pressed his lips together.
Absolutely not.
He was standing, metaphorically speaking, before a God.
Then again, hadn't he already spent the last several minutes teasing said God to His face?
Leonard considered this.
Apparently, the argument was convincing enough.
The laugh broke free.
Not the small, half-strangled sound he'd managed before, but a real one this time, warm and helpless and far too loud for the solemn quiet of the ancient palace. Leonard leaned back as it took him, one hand coming up to his mouth far too late to be of any use.
Klein's eyes opened.
Leonard caught the look directed at him and nearly laughed harder.
It was a glare, certainly. A rather deadly one, even.
Just not, thankfully, in the divine sense.
Oh Goddess, please help! Your devout believer was laughing at a God! And that said God even glared at him! Help!
“Leonard.” The warning in Klein's voice should have stopped him.
“Wait, Klein! I am not done yet!"
Unfortunately, it did not.
"Oh!! You made us wait while you consulted your own Blessed,” and of course, Leonard continued, sounding increasingly delighted.
“I needed time to think,” Klein replied, a little too quickly.
“You were your own Blessed.”
Klein went quiet. Leonard looked at him and nearly lost it again.
Oh. That expression. The flat stare, the mouth pressed into a thin line, the unmistakable look of a man who had decided the conversation in front of him was no longer worth the effort it required. Leonard knew it. He'd been on the receiving end of it more times than he could count.
For a brief moment, it was almost too easy to forget where they were.
Take away the bronze table, the towering pillars, the endless gray fog, and Leonard could have been back in Tingen, leaning against Klein's desk while the latter tried very hard to finish his paperwork and even harder not to throw Leonard out of the room. The memory came with an ache, but a warm one this time.
Klein really was still Klein.
Somehow, after everything, that ridiculous little fact was what finally broke Leonard's remaining self-control. A laugh slipped out, and he covered his mouth at once, though it was far too late for that to accomplish anything.
“You've been lying to all of us for years,” he managed through the last of it.
“I prefer maintaining necessary secrecy.”
Leonard stared at him over his hand. Of course. Of course Klein would call it that.
“Of course you do.”
Another laugh escaped, quieter this time, then gradually ran out on its own.
Leonard let his hand fall. The palace became quiet again, and he breathed out as he leaned back, still looking at Klein. The smile hadn't completely left his face yet.
Then he noticed something.
Klein hadn't covered himself again.
The thought came almost casually at first, but Leonard's eyes stayed on his face. The fog was still there, drifting beyond Klein's shoulders and around the distant pillars, pale and restless as ever. Yet none of it had returned to hide him.
His smile slowly faded.
Klein could have put it back.
Leonard knew that much. And he knew something else too, despite how increasingly ridiculous it felt to claim he knew Klein Moretti at all after everything he'd learned tonight: Klein liked his secrets. Liked was probably an understatement.
Leonard had spent years following the traces he left behind. Every time he thought he'd finally caught up, there had been something else. Klein Moretti. Sherlock Moriarty. Gehrman Sparrow. The World. He'd learned the truth in pieces, usually after Klein had already moved on and left him to put those pieces together himself.
He'd gotten used to it. Or at least he'd become very good at pretending he had.
But this was different.
Leonard hadn't discovered anything tonight. There had been no investigation, no trail to follow, no ridiculous coincidence dropping another piece of Klein into his hands. Klein had called him here. Klein had told him to look. Klein had taken the fog away himself.
His fingers curled slightly against the cool bronze.
A few minutes ago he'd been too shocked to think about it. Then too relieved. Then, admittedly, far too entertained by the realization that Klein had apparently spent years holding conversations with himself in front of an audience. Now there was nothing left to distract him, and the uneasiness that had been quietly building beneath everything else finally made itself known.
Leonard looked at Klein again, searching that familiar face for something he wasn't sure he wanted to find. Klein simply watched him.
That almost made it worse.
“Why?” Leonard asked, the word coming out quieter than he intended. When Klein didn't answer immediately, his brows drew together. “Why are you telling me now?”
Klein said nothing.
Leonard waited. The silence stretched long enough for the question to begin answering itself, and he hated how quickly he understood.
Ah. Of course.
Something cold sank through his chest, taking the last of his amusement with it.
This is a farewell.
Leonard didn't know what showed on his face then. He only knew his next breath came a little harder, and that the ache he'd managed to laugh around all evening had found him again.
“Oh,” he said.
Klein looked away.
That hurt more than an answer would have.
But, somehow, Leonard had expected it.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The bronze beneath Leonard's fingertips was cold, though he only noticed because he needed something else to notice, something that wasn't the tightness gathering behind his ribs.
His thumb dragged slowly over one of the mottled marks on the table. When he finally found his voice again, only one question came with it. “When?”
He didn't look at Klein this time. For some reason, the edge of the bronze table had become much easier to face.
“Soon.”
Soon.
Leonard hated that word immediately.
It could mean days. A week, perhaps. Long enough to prepare himself for something he wasn't sure anyone could prepare for. Long enough to sort through everything crowding his head and decide which questions mattered, or at least ask enough of them that he wouldn't spend however many years came next regretting the ones he'd left behind.
But of course Klein would say soon. Never tomorrow, never three days from now, never anything Leonard could actually hold on to. Always just enough of an answer to be technically truthful while leaving the rest for Leonard to figure out himself.
Fine.
“Okay,” Leonard murmured. His thumb resumed its slow movement against the bronze. “Understood.”
He wasn't sure it was. But he could work with soon. He would have to.
A breath came from the other end of the table.
Leonard's thumb stopped again.
It was quiet, but in the stillness of the palace he heard the slight hesitation before Klein spoke.
“Tonight.”
Leonard's head snapped up.
For one strange second, he was certain he'd heard wrong. His mind had already made room for days, perhaps a week if he was lucky. It had taken that miserable little soon and stretched it into whatever time Leonard could steal from it.
Klein had just taken all of that back with one word.
Their eyes met across the table.
Leonard stared at him. His chest forgot what to do with the breath he'd just taken. It stayed there, caught and uncomfortable, while the word settled somewhere much deeper.
Tonight.
Not tomorrow.
Not after Leonard returned to the Church and had time to think. Not after he found the right words, or decided which questions mattered, or figured out what exactly one was supposed to say to someone before they went to sleep without knowing when they would wake again.
But—tonight.
Leonard sat back slowly.
A laugh almost came then, but there was nothing funny enough to carry it.
“So that's it?”
Klein's brow moved slightly. “What do you mean?”
“You tell everyone you're going to sleep.” Leonard heard the edge entering his own voice and made no effort to soften it. “Then you pull me back here, show me your face, and tell me you're leaving tonight.”
“Leonard—”
“And what am I supposed to do with that?”
Klein fell silent.
There it was again.
That damned silence.
Leonard turned his face away, jaw tightening. He could feel his pulse beating high in his throat now, annoyingly quick for someone sitting perfectly still.
He had wanted this, hadn't he?
Back in his room, like an idiot, he'd been bitter because Klein had left without telling him. Because once again Leonard had been given nothing but an empty chair and the expectation that he would understand.
Well. Here was his warning.
Klein had told him before leaving this time.
It turned out Leonard hated this too.
The realization was so unfair that he almost laughed.
Almost.
“This is cruel, Klein,” he murmured.
Klein went very still.
Leonard hadn't meant to say it aloud. But now that it was there between them, he couldn't quite bring himself to take it back.
Funny. Leonard found he didn't particularly care.
And here he was, Klein didn't even try to argue.
Somehow, that made it worse. Leonard had half expected an explanation, one of those maddeningly reasonable answers Klein always seemed able to produce when cornered, but none came. The silence stretched between them until Leonard found himself rubbing his thumb against the side of his finger simply to have something to do.
“You could've told me earlier.”
“I could have.”
The easy agreement pulled Leonard's gaze back to him. “Then why didn't you?”
Klein was quiet for a moment. “I wasn't sure I should tell you at all.”
Leonard let out a short laugh, dry enough to scrape his throat. “That's supposed to make it better?”
“No.”
Of course not.
He looked away, jaw tightening. There were too many things he wanted to say and most of them sounded childish even inside his own head. You should've told me. You should've trusted me. You should've given me more than one damned night. None of it would change anything. Tonight would still be tonight.
“You could've left it that way, then,” he said at last. “Why call me back?”
Klein's gaze rested on him for long enough that Leonard began to regret asking.
“Because I didn't want you to hear about it after I was gone.”
Leonard went still.
The words found somewhere tender with embarrassing accuracy.
For years, that had been the shape of Klein's absence: Leonard arriving after the fact. A grave already filled. A trail already cold. Another name discarded before Leonard had even learned it belonged to him.
Even tonight, he'd sat in his room with that same old bitterness, angry that Klein had once again managed to leave before Leonard knew he was going.
Except this time he hadn't.
This time Klein had turned back.
But—but what for?
Leonard swallowed. His throat had gone dry.
“You called me back to say goodbye?”
Something shifted in Klein's face. He seemed to consider the question before giving the slightest shake of his head.
“Yes and no.”
Leonard's pulse stumbled.
There was enough in those three words to make him forget, briefly, how annoyed he was supposed to be.
“What do you mean?”
Klein only stared at him. Right into his soul.
Then came the soft click of porcelain against bronze.
Leonard's eyes dropped.
A cup of tea had appeared beside his hand.
For a moment, he simply stared at it. Steam curled lazily from the surface, drifting through his line of sight toward Klein at the other end of the table.
Leonard looked at the tea.
Then at Klein.
His brows slowly drew together.
Of all the possible answers to his question, tea had not been among them.
He raised his eyes again, disbelief written plainly across his face.
He raised his eyes again, disbelief written plainly across his face.
“... Seriously?”
“I want to tell you a story.”
Before Leonard could ask what that was supposed to mean, another cup appeared at Klein's side, followed by a teapot between them.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Steam rose quietly from the tea, carrying a faint warmth into the otherwise still air of the palace.
Then Klein reached for his cup.
“It's about my home,” he said, drawing the cup closer. His fingers settled around the warm porcelain, though he made no move to drink. Instead, his gaze remained on Leonard, and something in it softened.
Just a little.
Then, with a tenderness so quiet Leonard might have imagined it, Klein added, “and about you.”
(Tbc)