if it is right, it happens-- the main thing is not to hurry. nothing good gets away.

[altaschith]

[it's been about two years. two and a half years. two years, six months, and thirteen days, actually. not that he's keeping track. there'd be no real point to knowing the last time he talked to the one and only person who has half a chance of knowing where he's coming from, and where he should be going next. no real point. anyway, it's been about nine hundred and twenty-five days, and chaos has this to say:]

hey.

Comments

[avodah]

[The mountaintop shouldn't be such a strife. Wilhelm is always at its peak, always cresting at a range's ridge, and he has full view of the valley. It is lush, yes. It looks like a soft place to lie. Wilhelm crests above it, and he wants to know why Yeshua finds it so hard to come up higher. Yeshua's voice shouldn't need to roll up toward him on a current of lifegiving moisture. He could easily be speaking close to Wilhelm's ear, if he chose to. But Yeshua is a defiant piece of life. He would rather... Wilhelm is cresting, but Yeshua would have him step down through mountain passes, down into the dips of the valley... Wilhelm knows better. He knows better than what Yeshua is fearing. Yeshua is sure-footed, with the nobility of a hart and the harmony of a hind; he could walk upon high places. He could do that. But he asked Wilhelm to settle in the valley. That's not going to happen, Wilhelm said, in silk and in resolve. It isn't ever going to happen. I recommend against asking me again. It's for the best.

Yeshua left him, then. Yeshua went--perhaps he didn't come here from that far away, but he had to go there first. It's distance. Yeshua left in favor of distance.

Wilhelm closes it between them, for the first time in... well, it's only been a while. His hands are a cradle like bulrushes, like an ark. He reaches through the space between them to touch Yeshua's glove.] Even if you had. That's right. You have come closer over time, haven't you? I know. [His eyes are settled upon Yeshua's wrist; he examines there while he speaks.] You didn't come from that far away, but where you had gone was further. [The heart of him, that's what Wilhelm means.

He undoes the fastener on the inner wrist of Yeshua's glove.]

And when you left, I believe you wanted to go far away from me. It's no wonder. Yes, Yeshua, I do understand. [Wilhelm takes each of Yeshua's fingers, and he tugs the tips of the glove away from them, just enough to loosen the glove's fit.] Much time has passed since you first began to pace your way back and forth between the stars. [With the glove's five fingers made loose, it will only take a steady pull to remove the glove completely. Wilhelm pinches the middle finger of the glove, and he raises his eyes to look into Yeshua's while he begins to bare Yeshua's hand.] Now, I would not ask you to bring a thing. I do not need one thing. Tonight, the things I have here will be for you, and so you will have dinner, and so you will drink as you please.

[The glove slips away at last. But Wilhelm will wait for Yeshua to bring them skin to skin. It's always, always up to Yeshua, how long he wants to go without being touched.]

This was an invitation. I am ordering no tolls. This place... [Of learning, Wilhelm said. Kevin Winnicot takes his lessons here with Wilhelm, and when they share meals together, they'll do it here as well. But, you know,] It's what you ask of it, tonight.

[altaschith]

[chaos knew it would be an impossible request. he had known it to be impossible when he was still sitting there, before he said anything at all, with Wilhelm's hands on his naked shoulders and his own fingers curled over the beautiful stone at his throat. he was being faced with a precipice that he couldn't climb. there were tears in his eyes, and he found it hard and harder to breathe, no matter the unneeded breath. thinking back on it, it would have been so much easier, so much simpler, if he had leaned back and allowed himself to be carried higher on the unspoken promises of the night. but he leaned away from salvation, and his spine might have cracked, doing that, and he asked Wihelm if he would be willing to meet him at the dip of the valley instead. he didn't beg for it. he wasn't pleading per se. but it's what he was asking for, and he knew it was impossible long before he asked for it.

tonight, all that he's asked for couldn't be more unremarkable in comparison. in his time away, he was forced back under the crushing weight of loneliness; he wants that weight to be lifted, and for his back to straighten out again. he couldn't have been sure that Wilhelm was going to forgive him for everything he said, everything he did, until this very moment. even someone as magnanimous as Wilhelm has to have a point of no return, where he finds a person irredeemable, a total waste of his time. the question didn't do enough to make Wilhelm angry, but it did do something to him, something not so good, something that chaos didn't want to face head-on, and that's why he went away for nine hundred and twenty-five days. he's always running away from the consequences of his own existence. he ran pretty far away this last time, starting all over again with a series of odd jobs, none of them fulfilling, all of them a valuable distraction. he'd work all day, and nearly all night, and then fall asleep in his bed with his fingers curled at his throat.

in all that time, he never once took off his gloves if he could help it.

the anxiety of losing a buckler is there in his eyes when Wilhelm touches his glove so decisively. there might be relief, too, but it's really a lot of anxiety; a thickening of blood and saliva. as Wilhelm becomes acquainted with the valves and fasteners, chaos' pulse is making itself known in his ears and his throat. the glove is formed of thick techtron cloth, another innovation by vector industries, prized for both its sterility and its insulation... chaos can't believe the sensitivity of his own skin, buried as it is. the slightest shift of fabric has him shifting in his seat, neither closer nor father away, just more so unsettled. he's allowing Wilhelm's measured words to wash over him as the glove gets removed with all the care of an old dressing over a hopefully healed wound.

then he says, still looking up at Wilhelm,] I wanted to go far away from everything. [five thin and fragrant fingers, let loose for the first time in ages, carefully fold together and meet at the center of his palm. hardly anyone would believe that they're capable of unspeakable things.] And it was my own fault. It wasn't any fault of yours, Wilhelm. If anything, you're... [no matter how far away chaos might get, he can't seem to outrun any of it. the truth will catch back up to him sooner or later, and it's always painful, and then he wonders why he didn't stay in the one place where pain can be tempered with pleasure. there's an unbelievable amount of pleasure in laying his bare hand over Wilhelm's, as he does now. he can't hide the trembling of his fingers. he can't even hide the parting of his lips, or the stirrings of euphoria, either. no one else would agree to touch chaos like this for this much time already. more than the heat of him, there's a sharp current under his skin that threatens to disrupt matter. he radiates. he's radiating power. though a broken husk of himself, he's still one of the most powerful things in the known universe.]

If anything...

[he shouldn't be asking for more than a cup of tea, he reminds himself.

even so,]

If I asked you to undress me, would you do that for me?

[it's too frank, too inappropriate, to be seen as temptation or seduction. he's a man in a straitjacket who would give anything for another chance to be free.]

[avodah]

[Far away, says Yeshua, and he sounds like a mouthful of smoke. He has a voice like incense: it's rich, all smoky, and it tricks the mind. Well, it could trick the mind, if Wilhelm were not careful. He must be cautious in rubbing along the spread of Yeshua's hand, and it's caution just as much for his own self. Yeshua says it isn't Wilhelm's fault, that not any of it is. (Wilhelm presses his thumb into the crest of Yeshua's palm, and then he kneads into each prescient line.) Yeshua groups it all together, all of it, all that he wanted to leave, as if Wilhelm isn't stark in the middle of it. (Wilhelm touches the ridge of each tendon in Yeshua's wrist, and then he's precise about following Yeshua's undercurrent by pushing his thumb along each and every finger, all fragrant, all five.) And Wilhelm is well aware of the fear that he elicits, and he is aware of his capacity to keep it at bay. He is aware of his refusal to do so. He may have a soft throat, and his tongue may be rosy, but he doesn't have the give to him that Yeshua requires. If he had so much give, he'd fit better in Yeshua's palm. It isn't so bad now, the alignment of their hands--they can settle into each other rather nicely. But if Wilhelm sank for him in a certain way--well, if Yeshua were glad for it--well, all else would sink along with Wilhelm. Wilhelm was not built to drown, not in the last gasps of this domain, and not even in Yeshua's palms or power or pretty fragrance. He feels like he could do that, especially when he touches the inside of Yeshua's wrist like this, but it's not his calling. That cannot be his calling. Whether or not it's regrettable, he is made for more than drowning in the contact between them.

Regardless--

He laces their fingers together, loosely.]

Why don't we take our fill in my bedroom, [he says.] Dinner can find you there. [It isn't a question, but it is an encouragement.] There are always so many pieces to you--I shall strip it all away. I can do that for you, Yeshua. [All the straps, everything that fastens, and each part Wilhelm has taken care to find designs for--Wilhelm can take just as much care to clear them away from Yeshua's body. Likewise, he can give all Yeshua's holy highways and avenues of power the attention they've been lacking. He doesn't need to think about how to trace them. He could do it blind, if Yeshua were to blind him.

And Wilhelm doesn't sound seduced. There's no catch in his throat, nothing that sounds like a welling of blood within him. When he's silken in the way of lilies, it's because he always is. But while he rises from his seat, he still holds Yeshua's hand. If they walked hand in hand, and if they kept walking that way, and if their joining were to last, where could that take them? Where could Wilhelm let Yeshua lead him?

No, Wilhelm doesn't sound seduced. Not even when...] You shake, Yeshua. Your hand shakes at the touch of my hand. The more you deprive yourself, the more sensitive you grow. Do you know what you'll do about that? [He's not trying to be mean, of course. He might sound too aerial, with muslin rolling out of his mouth, but it's care--or, he might say, consideration--] Will you last the night beneath my hand?

[If Yeshua wishes to leave before morning, then he can do so--he is capable of doing so, and of choosing that. Yeshua is capable, Wilhelm reminds himself. He has the capacity to think and do. A driving will. Yeshua could leave right now, if he willed as much. Or he could let Wilhelm touch him for just a little while, and leave right after, instead. If he chooses not to last the night, Wilhelm will have a quiet breakfast, and he won't be having it in bed.]

[altaschith]

[there are things chaos wants to hear, and there are things chaos needs to hear, whether or not he wants to hear them. only Wilhelm knows what chaos needs to hear at any given moment, making each of his words more like a shock to the nerves than anything indulgent. Wilhelm tells him that he will take care of the shackles, that he'll release chaos from his necessary, self-imposed exile, and chaos' entire body is what's trembling now. the anticipation can't be called sweet--it's painful, honestly. it honestly hurts to think he still has a ways to go before Wilhelm will expose the rest of him to reality. his anxiety only deepens, but he'd be fine with doing it right here, right now, in full view of more stars than anyone could ever attempt to count. he'd be fine with any number of cosmic voyeurs. but he smiles weakly, and he nods weakly, too, and his eyes are glimmering like those same stars behind him, with relief, with boundless gratitude.]

Your bedroom, then, [chaos murmurs.] Thank you, Wilhelm. Thank you for doing this for me. [at this point, it must seem like he's only here to have Wilhelm touch him all over, when there are things they could talk about and things they could discuss. it really wasn't his intention to keep using Wilhelm like this. Wilhelm is more than an artful pair of hands that holds a map and compass to chaos' lonely landscapes. Wilhelm can be overwhelming for everything that he is and has become over the years. given another hundred years, another thousand, chaos would still struggle to put everything into more precise words. he does it best in the songs he has written for Wilhelm, though. he has hummed unique melodies against Wilhelm's shoulder, and down along the dip of his waist, whenever the mood strikes him. a normal man would find these psalms incomprehensible, if not muddling and maddening, but Wilhelm is separate from such concerns... Wilhelm, naturally, never seems moved by any golden lyric, though chaos suspects he enjoys it more than he'd ever admit.

just as chaos wouldn't admit he's glad to follow Wilhelm's lead in standing up from the table. he's glad to have his hand held and to know that Wilhelm will take care of him for the time being. he'll never admit to it if he can help it, but as often as he paces back and forth between the stars by himself, he can get so tired of doing that. so sick of doing that, even. he doesn't know where he came from, not really, or where he's supposed to go next, but Wilhelm could tell him both of those things, if he were willing to listen. maybe it's what he needs to hear, even though he doesn't want to hear it. maybe, after nine hundred and twenty-five days, with the end of days fast approaching, he could just...

oh, yet again, Wilhelm has a way of wresting chaos' attention by the very roots. he's merciless about it. he isn't being mean, but he's absolutely merciless.] Deprive... [chaos can't deny his own asceticism, and he can't argue in favor of it, either. he would elicit no sympathy in doing so.] Hey, you know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you're trying to tease me right now. [which isn't an answer to either one of Wilhelm's questions.

but his voice dips low, lower than the valley where he's asked for hearth and kin, and this time, this time, there's more to this than a helpless request.]

If you expect me to last the night, you're going to have to keep me preoccupied.