none of us are going back

it's the version of the young man that seems closest to himself rather than what is expected of him.

vadim is no stranger to expectations, having made a life and a killing out of meeting them (pun unintended but, hey, it's one he's proud of!) although he's got nearly a decade of a head-start in finessing it to an art form. 

his boss is, however, still figuring out who he is, how much dagbaev and how much altan.

it's far easier to think of him as the employer, even after all these years and seeing him grow through the highs and lows they've put him through. 

the reminder has kept it...almost safe. 

(almost.)

the fact that vadim is even consciously aware of the notion of this safety should have had alarm bells ringing some time ago. maybe, they're ringing all the same. maybe, they've been ringing for some time and he's just acclimated to them like white noise. 

it's this unkempt and unfiltered behind-closed-doors version of his boss that gets up from where he was sprawled on the adjacent couch and drops himself onto the loveseat where vadim's scrolling through transactions on his mobile banking app.

vadim feels himself tense for a fraction of a second at the proximity, the press of the thigh next to his, before relaxing. 

there's ample space such that altan could have kept some distance and not doing so was either a thoughtless instinct or a calculated choice. if vadim was someone else, he'd be losing sleep about which was worse.

"you'd think i was paying you more than enough for you to be taking on side gigs," altan snorts, before shoving a tablet in vadim's face.

vadim tucks his own device into his pocket and grins. "contract's got me all yours but a man’s got bills to pay." he then turns his attention to squint at clumps of green and white on the screen. "what am i looking at and when do you want it dead by?"

altan shoves at his shoulder at the quip. "camellias," he says. "what do you think?"

"ah so you've moved on from the...what was it? gardenias?" of course, he remembers. in another world, he'd hate that he remembers.

"we’re still keeping the gardenias. we're just," the smirk is barely perceptible, a slight twitch at the edge of his mouth, "diversifying our portfolio."

vadim notes the pronoun shift and decidedly thinks nothing of it. he takes in the shift in energy, the rare levity in his boss’ voice, and quirks his nicked brow. "you sure you want my advice on gardening?"

altan says, matter-of-fact, "you've seen the collection in the new greenhouse so another pair of eyes doesn’t hurt."

loneliness, vadim rationalizes, as he has been doing for some time now. surely, that's what this is borne of.

vadim's well aware his boss hardly spends time with friends or acquaintances, really anyone outside of dagbaev business contacts and guns for hire.

and what else is he but a gun for hire, another pair of eyes, a conversation partner to ease boredom on a quiet night, never mind that he can smell his boss' conditioner with how close they're sitting, altan practically half in his lap at this point scrolling through images and beckoning vadim's utterly useless input.

and it's almost amusing. he's gone from always taking great pride in his peripheral awareness, barely ever missing a mark, to now letting this blind-spot blossom, grow bigger, more audacious, and potentially more fatal by the day.

the blooms altan shows him are white, red, pink, and yellow. 

most people would probably consider them beautiful but vadim has never really had an eye for flora.

they're by the riverbank, the one shuuichi had looked out at, seen seiji silhouetted against, time and time again.

it feels strange to be beside him here somehow, a space that felt so distant and alien. more often than not, it still does.

"kindness and strength," the boy clarifies. "they are interchangeable in a manner of speaking. ultimately, that's the whole point in this line of work."

over time, shuuichi has found himself becoming less impatient and irritable in the face of seiji's soliloquies on their line of work, as he likes to call it.

shuuichi has told himself their line of work is different and will go on to be different. he doesn't have anything as heavy as the matoba name to uphold. conversely, seiji's existence likely hasn't been framed as a curse his entire life that he actively needs redemption from. 

if anything, it's interesting to learn how the mind of the heir of a clan like matoba's works. shuuichi thinks it may pay off to file away for later. he doesn't exactly know what for but there's an inkling that it just might alongside an old lesson that there's no such thing as knowledge gone to waste.

"this is why it's important to continue to take on jobs that will expand your profile," seiji carries on, "except you keep missing the meetings," and shuuichi can't be sure but he sounds a little frustrated as if talking to a student who keeps forgetting the deadline for homework.

the thing he still can't really piece together is why seiji even bothers with him half the time whether it's about directing him to new jobs or sharing facts and experiences and technique. there are so many more competent members of reputable exorcist clans he could be spending time with. shuuichi is well aware he has little to offer in their stead.

(shuuichi could assume that seiji too is filing away some knowledge for later through their interactions but he's hardly vain enough to believe he's that interesting or will ever become that important.)

in any case, these days they seem to have reached a status quo of sorts where shuuichi is content enough to take on some jobs on his own and, once in a while, team up for a more difficult one with seiji at his urging.

generally, he's content to give seiji credit for their shared work especially as seiji is often the one landing the finishing blow with his bow.

at today's exorcist gathering, however, seiji not only doesn't take the credit but goes so far as to broadcast shuuichi's skills to everyone in earshot. this leads to much chatter and positive referrals for shuuichi. 

something about the whole ordeal leaves shuuichi on edge and by the end of the meeting, he can't help contain it any longer.

"what was that about? why did you lie? you made it sound like i took on that ayakashi singlehandedly." 

"you're very welcome. your name will get some more momentum!" seiji flashes him his trademark self-satisfied smirk. "and it wasn't a lie. i just fired the final shot. you did do most of the prep and legwork."

"look," shuuichi scowls, "i don't need...whatever this is....your pity in the form of charitable advertising i guess."

seiji seems briefly puzzled at that but recovers quickly enough. "if you don't want the attention and aren't ready for bigger jobs, that's fine. i won't say anything again."

something swirls in his head, and it's a not-so-distant memory: seiji talking about kindness and strength.

shuuichi can't think too hard about it because everything feels like it's bubbling up all at once and he's aggravated beyond measure.

it's not about the attention. it's not about the jobs. it's about misplaced credit and everything he doesn't deserve but there isn't a way to say that that doesn't sound so awfully--

"i'll see you at the next gathering," seiji says on his way out, cutting into shuuichi's thoughts, as if it's a foregone conclusion. "oh and," he throws over his shoulder along with a wave, "sometimes it's fine to just take the shortcut, shuuichi-san, and not have to earn everything at the cost of immense suffering."

it freezes shuuichi in his tracks. 

it's simple enough since he'd spent long enough with the boy, shared a body with him, for crying out loud. besides, he'd done more with less before. 

speaking of which, kitty's guise came to be another top contender. the charm and the memory of the owner aside, there was something provocative about a weary millennia-old spirit embodying a spunky teenaged girl that he thinks would've continued to make her smile. 

*

john mandrake and kathleen jones were remembered long after their time. there were sculptures and names and portraits in books and they became household names in line with magical history and the london revolution.

though summonings now came with more parameters and safeguards, it didn't make the masters any less insufferable. they liked to rebrand themselves, thinking that using terms such as employees and contractors would erase their sordid history.

magicians from well after nat and kitty's era occasionally accused him of making a mockery of respected historical figures when he borrowed their guises.

he never bothered to correct them.

his memories of and affection for them remain his and his alone.

as enough time went on, nathaniel and kitty's young faces faded out of collective memory and became among the guises he came to rely on routinely.

he realized that the passage of time was a truly terrifying thing when he'd catch himself remembering his early years with their jagged young selves fondly.

*

it's the first rainfall after an arid summer.

he spots the grey of the sidewalk darkening in splotches from inside the window of a stuffy neoclassical government building he's stationed at to eavesdrop on classified intelligence, this time as a common housefly, unobtrusive and efficient. it's a little after the meeting ends and he buzzes out towards the portico that the rain starts to pick up.

there's a sense of déjà vu, the echo of a winter in alexandria, the vantage point of a lapwing perched on the shoulder of a boy.

this close, it had been easy to see the crinkle at the corner of his eye when the boy had smiled, to commit the melodic laughter to memory as he had let himself soak up the storm.

even as he has found himself becoming more protective, opting to keep it mostly for himself in these days when names and faces take up far too much attention and too little meaning, it remains the form that comes easiest, feels closest to home.

slowly, he carries ptolemy's guise into the downpour.

spirits care for neither rain nor shine.

he says your name all wrong these days, says the wrong name even, and you haven't corrected him in years.

it as if there's a fear that something would happen if he said the right one, that he'd invoke some ancient curse upon you both that would scorch the earth where you stood and leave nothing in its wake.

in your darker, selfish moments, you'd welcome it, can wish for nothing more.

you watch his throat in profile after a strenuous exorcism, his jaw tight, his breathing ragged.

there’s something especially haunting about the sight of him in this moment. the ferocity in his eyes makes you shiver in spite of yourself. you think if he ever looked at you with those eyes, you'd forget your own name: head of eleven houses reduced to whatever he wanted you to be, whatever he wanted you to do.