We Have a Castle Enclosed (Xenon!) [Finito!]

[Satra]

She gave a small smile as he leaned into her touch. It was a good hint that she was reaching him.

"I never suspected it from you, Apocalypse," she told him softly. She kept stroking his face gently, careful to avoid his black eye. Enjoying the sting or not, she was sure it hurt on its own without her pothering it. A soft laugh escaped her, "Haha, yes. I see your back. How could I miss it?"

Heilyn took in a slow, deep breath. She honestly wished she had something more concrete than her sympathy to offer him. She felt the same hopelessness he did. She reached down and pulled him into a hug, pressing her nose against the top of his head.

"I know, Apocalypse," she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady. She needed to be strong for him. His stability was far more at risk than hers. She gave a quiet surprise gasp at the knock at the door. That must be their food. Oh yes. Rare cooked meats don't take that long. She wasn't in the mood to eat at the moment... she hoped she would be before the food got cold. Reheating it with her own ability had too high of a chance of being disastrous. In other words: having the meat end up cooked past medium rare. Awful.

"Do you want to wait to eat? I don't mind." The servant could wait until she got an answer from Pale.

[carcinoGeneticist]

The constant physical contact was nice, almost reassuring. It kept him feeling tethered to this world, a tie that seemed like it was getting more and more fragile with every passing day. He wondered sometimes if his mind was in this same fragile state. He twitched again at the thought, but settled into Heilyn's embrace, even wrapping his arms around her somewhat. He was more Bog-dweller than he'd ever thought, he realized, and almost grinned.

"Yeah, hard to miss things like that," he grinned, but then his face fell and he frowned, brows furrowing. It hurt to move his face like that with his black eye and scratches, but he didn't really care. When she'd released him slightly, he removed his arms from around her. One hand rested on the left side of his chest, fingers tracing over the blank stretch of skin. "Hard to miss." he repeated, sounding oddly distant.

Maybe Rhiannon hadn't been able to overlook it.

That would explain a lot.

Without meaning too, the man grabbed Heilyn in another firm hug and began to sob. His entire body shook. Damnit all. He didn't want to eat. He didn't need to eat, didn't need to breath. He didn't need to love. But he did all of those things. Life would have been easier if he'd just stayed a weapon, had never bothered to become a man.

[Satra]

Heilyn's brow furrowed slightly has he absently touched the empty space on his chest. How distant he was... Another knock. Idiot servant.

"Leave it there!" she shouted at the door then returned to Pale. "Apocalypse? What's on your mind?" Then the response to her question was answered with being grabbed into another hug. She just shut her eyes and pressed her face against the side of his head. Unable to keep it in anymore, a sob escaped her as well. Her fingers open and closed in his hair. She hated this feeling of hopelessness. If there was something she could do, she do it. Not being able to do anything... it was the worse.

She waited until he stopped before she even tried to brinbg the conversation back. He needed this. He needed to be able to let all of this out.

[carcinoGeneticist]

The sobs were the angry ones that he'd been so plagued with since Rhiannon left, the ones that twisted his gut all inside-out and made him feel like throwing up. It was a good thing he hadn't been eating very much or else he probably would have been throwing up quite a lot. If it wasn't for Heilyn being so close, he would have likely just turned back into a scythe. He'd still feel the emotion, of course, but none of the awkward bodily motions that went along with it.

That was the one problem with having a living, breathing body. It did weird things that he didn't always understand.

"She is," he snarled bitterly, voice cut by another powerful sob. "She fucking loved them. Both of them. Neither of them deserved her, but she deserved everything and more. She deserved more than me, I know, but.." he sniffed loudly, then pulled away from Heilyn, staring at the ground. His orange eyes smoldered with hurt and upset. "But I still gave her everything. I advised her how to love them because I knew it would be best for her, even though I wanted her for myself."

He laughed bitterly, looking back up at Heilyn through his good eye. "And look where it got me."

[Satra]

This evening was just full of surprises, wasn't it? Even more shocking than the last, this one truly blindsided her. From her conversations in the past with him, she knew he adored Rhi. How could he not? She was his summoner and creator. But love... true and honest romantic love. That was an entirely different story.

She let him go, folding her hands in her lap now that her hands were free. She paused a little longer than she would have liked, unable to find the words she was looking for. She'd once lost someone she loved, the bastard abandoning her as soon as she admitted her feelings, but that she could get over. She wasn't connected to him like Pale was to Rhi. He couldn't just wait for the pain to go away, for someone else to come along. It was a difficult matter.

"No, circumstances out of you control put you here, not your love for her," she said in a soft but insistent voice. She didn't need to remind him he would be just as devastated even if he wasn't in love with her. She put a hand on his shoulder, "Pale, I need you to promise me something. You're the only one of us that has this power. If Rhi needs you, no matter how she protests, go to her. We will bring her back," her grip unintentionally tightened and she bit her bottom lip to keep from crying again. Heilyn had vowed to herself she would bring her back the second she’d heard of her disappearence.

[carcinoGeneticist]

The scythe knew that Heilyn was right. Really, he was being silly about this in a lot of ways, but emotions had a strange way of changing his actions. He pressed a hand against his face, anger rising when he felt the lingering wetness, but he forced it down. No, it wasn't Heilyn's fault. She was, in fact, just trying to make it better.

"I know," he replied rather shortly. It wasn't an intentional thing, but the words just came out clipped. "It's just that... if I didn't give a damn about her beyond simply caring about her as my summoner, I wouldn't care what she told me to do. I make a better Heart than most of the nobles in this court and I don't even have the marking." he quirked her a grin, resorting to comedy as a last-chance protection against hurt. "Got any lipstick? We can draw one on."

Then his face fell again and he shook his head slowly, sadly. Rhiannon. He knew perfectly well how she was doing. He knew that every day was just a little bit worse, a little bit more unstable. But it wasn't bad enough for him to run to her, not enough for him to actually tell anyone what she - they - were going through. If things continued to go downhill, however, he'd be quick to get help before he left to find her.

"I won't let anything happen to her," he whispered quickly, reaching out for Heilyn's hand once more. After all, it happened to both of them.

[Satra]

A dry, half-felt smile crept onto her face.

"Hey now. What are you trying to say?" the mother of two Clubs joked, her smile fading quickly, "Though I do agree," she said, thinking over many of her least favorite nobles, "You'd make a better noble than a good amount of them."

Her other hand came out to wrap around the hand of his that was on her first. She brought his hand up to her face and gently pressed his fingers against her forehead. She closed her eyes and let the touch linger, taking comfort in it and at the same time feeling a touch unnerved at the lack of a pulse. She brought her head up, his fingers now touching the bridge of her nose, and opened her eyes to look at him.

"I appreciate that more than I can possibly say."

[carcinoGeneticist]

Apocalypse managed to give Heilyn a grin, his eyebrows wiggling for a moment. "Nothin' at all, Highness," he replied simply, but when her face fell his did too. He was still smiling, but the light went out of his eyes. "...Yeah. Too bad, huh?"

He'd never be a noble. How could he? He wasn't even a Card. In truth, he wasn't even his own entity - he was Rhiannon's, through and through, even when she was gone. There was no way for him to change that, so he'd just have to content himself with taking care of her issues back home while she dealt with her mental ones. He had to hold her life together for now. When Heilyn picked up his hand he stirred, blinking at her as he suddenly felt himself touching her face.

When her grip on his hand relaxed slightly he sighed, moving the hand to cup her cheek for a moment, orange eyes meeting yellow. There was pain in his expression. His hand moved, smoothing her hair before resting on the curve of her neck. Then, slowly, he took it away, resting it in his lap. Abruptly, the man curled again, his head resting in Heilyn's lap, his eyes focused on nothing.

"It's nothing." he replied, voice coming out more clipped than he'd intented. "I mean... We're family, after all."

Family. Was that what Heilyn was to him? It was a question, one he wasn't entirely comfortable with prodding at. For now, he'd just lay with his head in her lap, wondering what would happen next. To him. To her. To any of them.

[Satra]

Heilyn leaned into the touch, staying silent as his hand fell from her neck and he curled up in her lap again. She ran her fingers through his hair and let the silence linger for a moment as she turned a thought over in her head. Family? Were they? He was a good chunk of her daughter's mind and soul. He was a part of her. Heilyn cared for him dearly.

It made sense.

"Yeah," she said quietly, her expression softening slightly, "Family. Of course." She couldn't think of what else to say. It wasn't a problem, though. The silence, she felt, was not awkward or heavy. They needed it, that unspoken understanding.

After some time, her stomach made a loud noise at her. Her fingers flinched in mid-brush.

[carcinoGeneticist]

The silence was nice. It gave Apocalypse time to consider what they had both said, what they'd agreed to. Because it felt like that - a mutual agreement that both parties had considered. He was a part of their family. It made sense, of course. He'd never seen Rhi as a sibling, clearly, but she was... Something to him. Whenever he thought about it too much, his mind twisted oddly, as if trying to avoid a question he couldn't himself answer.

Luckily, Heilyn had done that part for him. He'd accept what she'd said.

The sound of the woman's stomach rumbling made him laugh, and he turned so that he could look up at her, a grin beginning to show itself on her face. "Fuck, I bet the food's gone cold." he commented, glancing back at the door. "You know, if you're as hungry as your stomach is claiming, you can always have mine too. Just don't tell Seth, or he'll blame me for making his wife fat." He reached over and teasingly poked her side, demonstrating clearly how far from fat Heilyn actually was.