[ oops, someone hasn't been paying attention to anything outside of thorne. it's a fortunate thing that's where he wound up in all this. ]
dude what do you mean where am i where else would i be?? shit it's raining cats and dogs i'm pretty sure our windows aren't gonna make it you didnt get plunked outside did you? i can come get you with an umbrella
[Dude? Dude? He spirals into panic because he doesn't know where you went when he came through the portal, and you have the audacity to dude him? Iris is lucky that Wilhelm's relief in hearing from him douses any spark of anger before it can catch. He pushes out a long sigh.]
Cadens as in the Free Cities. Oh my god, I've totally failed you as a roommate.
Something went wrong with the portals. I'm not the only one who ended up somewhere they shouldn't be.
No, they're not going to kill us. I mean, it wasn't exactly a warm welcome, but I think they're smart enough to realize that if they kill us, there's nothing stopping Thorne or Solvunn from killing any of their summoned that ended up in the wrong place.
I'm stuck here until they can figure out how to fix the portals.
So...
I don't know when I'll come back. I'm sorry, Iris.
[ it is sinking in, much in the same way an anvil cleaves straight through air from a 50-story drop. ]
alright
okay
i'll just come get you then
[ sorry? no no, he doesn't want to hear any sorry's. sorry means there's nothing that can be done, and that's just not an option for iris right now.
how hard can it be? (very.) people probably cross territories all the time without issue. (doubtful.) he's got his invisibility cloak, and a rudimentary knowledge of the free cities' general direction in relation to thorne. it'll be fine! (it won't.) ]
First of all, Thorne will never let you leave. They have guards and soldiers everywhere. And even if you got past them, you'd have to go through like mountains and desert. And just because the Free Cities is tolerating us while everything gets sorted out, it doesn't mean they'll want to let more people in.
I'll be ok. I have friends in the Free Cities, they'll be able to help me out.
[Somewhere far from home, Wilhelm slumps lower where he sits with his back against a wall. He wishes he could reach across all the miles between them to clasp Iris' hand between his. He wishes he could offer something sturdier than words.]
I was scared.
When I came through and I didn't see you. I thought
[ where would i go? is the initial, selfish response that iris has to fight back from writing. at his core he can feel despair welling up inside him, somehow both familiar and brand new, but he knows none of this is wilhelm's fault. even if it does make him feel rather impotent with rage, with no one to direct it towards, but he stifles it all down anyway, trying to focus on other, more important things:
wilhelm is safe. wilhelm is alright.
wilhelm reached out to him almost instantly, and that matters more to iris than he can properly say right now. ]
i'm not going anywhere
i'm keeping you okay? that means you can keep me too
[There's a pause where shame begins to prickle in the open space left by his admission. Why is his brain like this, always lurching to the worst conclusion? How is he so weak that even a moment of not knowing where Iris was made him feel like the sky was collapsing? But as soon as he reads those words, the embarrassment of making himself vulnerable ebbs in a swell of warmth.]
[ iris is glad to have assuaged wilhelm, even though he doesn't quite know the full extent of wilhelm's worry. he assumes there's nothing more to it than that initial disorientation and anxiety of being suddenly displaced, and the subsequent frantic need to regather one's bearings. iris himself isn't thinking much of the past, but rather the future... and how suddenly bleak it looks, compared to literally just a couple of hours ago. ]
[The worst of his worries may have been smoothed, but a grey uncertainty hangs over the future. He doesn't know how long he will have to be away. He doesn't know how the distance will stretch and strain their relationship — whatever shape it's starting to take.]
the horizon? that's that mind palace thing right...
[ truthfully, he'd only ever been once and the visit itself paled to stand out in comparison all the realness of the outside sprawling out before him that he hadn't been back since. nor has he even thought much of it. ]
yeah i guess so
[ he's trying not to be so petulant about it. it's an option, and certainly a far better one than the messages they're doing now, so it's not like he has any real reason to complain... but a part of him can't help but think it isn't real, which really isn't the kind of thought he wants hanging over his head when he sees wilhelm again.
[To Wilhelm, the Horizon is just another layer of reality. What happens there may not ripple out into the physical world, but it did happen. It stays with you all the same.]
I want to see you.
Let's meet there later.
Kyle is coming to get me in a few minutes. He ended up here too. He's staying at his partner Viktor's place and they're letting me stay with them.
[ the giddiness that blooms inside iris at that little smile emoticon is — embarrassing, frankly, but he is far too gone to want to do anything about it. ]
[The day lapses into evening before Wilhelm gets a chance to message Iris again. They'd agreed to meet in the Horizon, but before that, he wants to clear some things that have been clattering around his thoughts since they left the magma pools.]
Hey. ♥
[Don't ask him how long he spent debating between a heart and a smiley face.]
Can I talk to you about something?
Nothing bad. I'm not changing my mind about anything. I want to see you.
[Suddenly, Wilhelm wonders if he should have waited until he could hold Iris' hand. But he doesn't want to drag their reunion down with the heavy things he's been holding onto. Their date, he reminds himself, causing his heart to flutter like it's become untethered in his chest.]
It's about earlier, when I said I was scared.
I just thought you should know why. Because I don't want to hide things from you, and I want you to feel comfortable telling me things too.
[There's a pause before he plunges in.]
You know my old roommate, Kelson? We were actually together for a little while. He was my boyfriend. Then he disappeared.
It was last spring. We had really bad storms for a whole month, and someone realized that it was because the Singularity was like unbalanced. So all of us Summoned were sent there to try to calm it down.
Except when we got there we all went into a sort of magic coma. We dreamed that hundreds of years passed. It felt so real.
When I woke up, Kelson was gone. It was like he fell through a crack somewhere between reality and that weird dream.
[ for better, but often for worse, iris still lacks something of a filter even through written communication. ]
you dated your old roommate?
[ he flinches back at his own gall. there are obviously more important things to focus on here, but why his brain decides to snag on that one thing first especially when wille is being so vulnerable is absolutely a lesson in stupidity.
hastily, he adds: ]
that makes sense why you'd be frightened this happened to you before
[There's a stab of guilt that doesn't come from anywhere rational. He doesn't want Iris to think that he just dates all of his roommates. That it's a matter of convenience and proximity, when what's between them runs deeper than that — at least, he thinks it does.]
Yeah. He gave me the necklace I used to wear.
[The one that, Iris may have noticed, he never put back on after they left the magma pool.]
Maybe it was for the best. Kelson...was never happy here. He felt like his purpose was in his duties back home. He always intended to go back. I couldn't change his mind about that.
But you want to make a new life here, right? So...I was scared for myself, because I don't want to lose you. And I was scared for you too, because you'd lose your chance to choose your own life.
[ he remembers the necklace. remembers, too, the moment wilhelm had taken it off. how certain it felt that something had shifted decidedly between them the second after it was removed. in the safety of the room they had once shared β will share again, once this whole mess is smoothed over β iris feels the knot in his chest loosen a little, just enough to remember how to breathe again. ]
do you miss him?
[ βno. that's unfair of him, isn't it? ]
sorry you don't have to say if you don't want to i've never done anything like this before... i've barely even had a friend i guess i just want to make sure that you're okay i'm me and not him
[That's just the truth. He thinks that the boys he loved before will always be a part of him, in some intangible, ineffable way, even after the holes they left in his heart have knit back together. Now, Iris' admission aches in his chest, and he wishes again that he could just scoop him into his arms. Soon.]
I'm more than ok that you're you.
You're not just filling an open spot, and you're not a replacement for anyone. I like you, Iris. I like you because you're you.
[ at least, he thinks he does. he's never dated anyone before, but there are people in his heart who might have once occupied that special space, if they had had any time or opportunity to actually nurture it... even now, at the cusp of a new life he hopes to build, he wonders about laurence, about lillium. he hopes their lives are doing much better, now that he isn't around to complicate it. ]
thanks, though for saying all that i mean it would have been okay anyway! just saying like i said, this is all pretty new to me...
[It's still a little new to Wilhelm too. Although he's been in a relationship twice before, both ended just as they were beginning. He wants to do everything he can to make sure he keeps Iris.]
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[ oops, someone hasn't been paying attention to anything outside of thorne. it's a fortunate thing that's where he wound up in all this. ]
where else would i be??
shit it's raining cats and dogs i'm pretty sure our windows aren't gonna make it
you didnt get plunked outside did you? i can come get you with an umbrella
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wait
what
[ actually let's not calm down, let's do the exact opposite of thatβ ]
are you stuck there? are the portals broken? are they gonna kill you because you're from thorne?????
when are you coming back?
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okay
i'll just come get you then
[ sorry? no no, he doesn't want to hear any sorry's. sorry means there's nothing that can be done, and that's just not an option for iris right now.
how hard can it be? (very.) people probably cross territories all the time without issue. (doubtful.) he's got his invisibility cloak, and a rudimentary knowledge of the free cities' general direction in relation to thorne. it'll be fine! (it won't.) ]
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it can't be that long already feels too much like a lie.
he really isn't allowed to keep anything, is he? ]
[ what else can he even say? ]
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wilhelm is safe. wilhelm is alright.
wilhelm reached out to him almost instantly, and that matters more to iris than he can properly say right now. ]
i'm keeping you
okay?
that means you can keep me too
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that's that mind palace thing right...
[ truthfully, he'd only ever been once and the visit itself paled to stand out in comparison all the realness of the outside sprawling out before him that he hadn't been back since. nor has he even thought much of it. ]
[ he's trying not to be so petulant about it. it's an option, and certainly a far better one than the messages they're doing now, so it's not like he has any real reason to complain... but a part of him can't help but think it isn't real, which really isn't the kind of thought he wants hanging over his head when he sees wilhelm again.
but what other choice do they have? ]
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it's a date
[ of course it's only as soon as he writes that does it sink in how mortifying that sounds so he quickly follows that up withβ ]
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are they close?
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THAT'S WILD
they're like
so different!
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i thought you meant like business partners...
the whole bike thing and all
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you know where to find me
tell them i say hi
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it's fine it's cool he's just gonna... take comfort in that cute little heart and ignore the flash of terror and push forward, ]
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[ he flinches back at his own gall. there are obviously more important things to focus on here, but why his brain decides to snag on that one thing first especially when wille is being so vulnerable is absolutely a lesson in stupidity.
hastily, he adds: ]
this happened to you before
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[ βno. that's unfair of him, isn't it? ]
you don't have to say if you don't want to
i've never done anything like this before...
i've barely even had a friend
i guess i just want to make sure
that you're okay i'm me and not him
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[ at least, he thinks he does. he's never dated anyone before, but there are people in his heart who might have once occupied that special space, if they had had any time or opportunity to actually nurture it... even now, at the cusp of a new life he hopes to build, he wonders about laurence, about lillium. he hopes their lives are doing much better, now that he isn't around to complicate it. ]
for saying all that i mean
it would have been okay anyway! just saying
like i said, this is all pretty new to me...
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yeah i'd really like that