ghostinthewires

Copia sighs, reaching up to rub his eyes before stopping himself from doing that too. “Cazzo,” he hisses. “I am ready for this to be over, lucciola. I miss my bed.”

Dew smiles, the tiny little crook of his lips that Copia knows means a much wider smile than he intends to show. “Shit, me too,” he nods, unzipping his bag and rummaging through it. “But this will do for now.”

Copia watches his ghoul move, the same purposeful stride that he keeps on stage, in the public eye. The exhaustion’s starting to show through, Dew starting to unmask before he gets ready for bed.

But instead of any of his own toiletries, Dew whistles happily, pulling back from his bag with a packet of makeup wipes. His gaze softens, meeting mismatched eyes without hesitation. “May I, Papa?”

Copia’s heart kicks in his chest, nodding as a swell of fondness rushes over him like a wave. “I’d be honored, lucciola.”

Dew trills, directing Copia to sit down at the edge of one of the beds. “I’ll make it quick,” he promises. “Know we both wanna sleep.”

“Mhm,” Copia agrees. Dew stands between his knees, haloed by the lamplight, and if Copia didn’t know better, he’d say his ghoul looked angelic like this. Mussed up, in disarray. Perfect. “Thank you, caro.”

“Haven’t even started yet,” Dew chuckles, taking a wipe and setting the package aside. “But of course.”

Dew takes Copia’s chin in a warm hand, fingers so gentle as he tips Copia’s head back enough so he can work.

Copia tenses before he even makes contact, expecting the wipe to be like ice on his overheated skin. But instead, Dew’s natural temperature’s warmed the wipe enough to be comfortable, and he can’t help himself but lean into Dew’s hand as he works.

“Still,” Dew tries to admonish, but there’s no denying how he smiles. “Don’t want to get makeup remover in your eyes.”

Copia sighs and listens, holding as still as he can. He’s distracted well enough by the ghoul in front of him, as devoted at this as he is his guitar. Copia’s reminded of the look on Dew’s face when he’s knelt in the chapel at home. He tries hard not to think too much into that, instead just letting himself love his ghoul back.

Bit by bit, Dew removes all the paint from his skin, wiping away Papa and leaving just Copia behind. Weight lifts from Copia’s shoulders just from the thought. Dew throws away the wipe, and Copia gently grabs his wrist.

“Thank you, caro,” he hums, soft and a little too smitten. “Truly.”

Dew smiles back, leaning down to bump his forehead against Copia’s. He smells like pyro smoke and sweat, familiar enough to not be unpleasant. “Always, Cee.”

“May I return the favor, Dew?” he asks, reaching up with his other hand to curl the end of Dew’s braid around his finger. “See what kind of shower this place has, let me wash your hair for you?”

Dew chitters, lighting up at the prospect. “Fuck, yes. Sounds like a plan.”

Cumulus is quiet for a long time. Sister is smart; she withdraws her leg and waits for what needs to be said. Before she speaks, Cumulus looks at her. Really looks at her. At the girlish face and the body of a young woman. So unlike the elegant Sister she had loved.

“I didn't take you for being this vain.” She says finally. She knows she looks sad. She has every right to be. Sister Imperator was dead. No matter how her spirit chose to present, nothing would change the fact that she had died and her physical body was now entombed like all the others.

Sister blinks and for a fraction of a second, looks guilty.

“Oh.” She says. “That.”

“Yes.” Cumulus says. “That.”

They fall silent. The stars shine. The world turns. Cumulus speaks again.

“You were beautiful the way you were. ” Memories of perfectly combed silver hair. Wrinkles of worry, of laughter, of a life fully lived. A body that had gone through so much, bore two children and carried the sharpest mind of the Clergy. A wisdom in the eyes that she's afraid to look for now, lest she finds that too, is missing. She doesn't understand humans. Doesn't understand this obsession with youth and the fleeting beauty of it. “Why would you give that up?”

Sister draws her knees up to her chest and she looks so impossibly small that it hurts Cumulus to see. She closes her eyes and Cumulus turns her attention to the sky again. The atmosphere and the universe beyond it. Humans were such petty creatures. But then, wasn't she as well? Who was she to demand another look a certain way? If Sister was happy with her younger self, Cumulus had no right to judge.

It was just strange. That was all.

“I'm glad you saw me that way.” Comes her soft answer. “All I could see was how I was dying.”

“I never saw that.” Cumulus replies. “I only saw how strong you were through it all.”

“I was so tired.” Sister confesses. “So very tired.”

That, Cumulus knew. The cancer had been fast and it had been brutal. It had appeared and then it had spread. Metastisized, was the word they kept saying. From her breast where the tumor was, to her heart.

“All I saw,” Sister continues. “Was a weak, fragile old woman. And I couldn't love the way she looked anymore.”

I loved you. Cumulus wants to say. But she isn't human and she knows her love is not enough to save someone.

“You had dignity til the end.” Cumulus says instead. “And it broke my heart to watch you die.”

No one had expected it. Copia’s power had glamoured his mother's condition to them all. It wasn't until after she passed away that final night that they all realized how bad things had truly been. The curtain, ripped away. A dead woman in repose.

“Do you mean it?” Sister asks. Eternally young. Still the woman Cumulus loved.

“All of it.”

They watch the stars wink out in the rising light of dawn. When Cumulus looks again, a heartbreakingly familiar face looks back at her.

Sister smiles, the grooves in her skin deepening and the silver in her hair twinkling like fading stars.

But her eyes burn the same as they always did.

I HAVE A TASK FOR YOU, MY SON, said the lake. 

Rain did not open his eyes. “I will not listen to you, sister.” 

DO I SOUND LIKE YOUR SISTER, THEN?

He sighed quietly, the almost-inaudible breath betraying a depth of emotion utterly contrary to the softness of the sound. “Whichever of you it is, leave me be. You have more important things to do than play foolish games with your little brother.”

NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT TO ME THAN MY CHILDREN.

He did open his eyes at that, a thin sliver of the shifting tide-greens and blacks revealed behind cold gray lids. “Childish tricks ill befit you, father.”  

The lake chuckled a low, rumbling murmur of amusement. 

FATHER, YES. BUT NOT THE ONE YOU THINK. 

Rain’s eyes went wide, realisation hitting him just before a rush of warmth wrapped around him, filled his mind with light, sound, colour, life, passion. Music. Love. 

“Prince of the Pit, forgive Your child.” The rocks of the shore stung and bit under him as he scrabbled to his knees. “Forgive my distrust, my inadequacy, if Your endless grace allows it, though Your unworthy son does not -”

RAIN. 

The calm, peaceful adoration - the Love - in the water’s voice silenced him immediately. The fear and self-hatred melted away into nothing under the comforting weight of it, stilling him in a way nothing ever had before. 

FORGIVE YOU? FOR NOT KNOWING EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU HAVE BEEN TAUGHT IT? FOR THE UNDESERVED DISAPPOINTMENT THAT IS ALL YOU KNOW TO EXPECT? A gentle hand settled on his cheek, invisible and incorporeal, and he did not flinch from it as he had from every other touch in his life. Did not flinch from the invisible eyes which it teased his gaze up into, as he had every other eye in his narrow world. YOU HAVE EXCEEDED EVERY EXPECTATION PLACED UPON YOU, MY SON. WHEN THOSE YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO RELY ON DECIDE YOUR EFFORTS WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ENOUGH BEFORE YOU EVEN BEGAN, YOU CANNOT BE BLAMED. 

Rain lowered his head, his middle finger tapping anxiously on his thumb in a rhythm only he could comprehend. “Go to another, my Master. Set Your task before one You can rely on.” 

I RELY ON YOU, RAIN. YOU ARE THE ONE I HAVE CHOSEN. THE ONE I KNOW I CAN TRUST. 

Something brushed at his thoughts, polite and undemanding, and he flung open the doors of his mind and let it in with a freedom he had never felt before. 

A vision filled his mind. The surface. A human. Several humans, but one seemed more important than the others. A small man, face painted black and white, his whole being thrumming with power, potential, possibility. Danger. He looked up, looked into the ghoul’s eyes across the planes, and Rain nearly shrank back under the weight of the white eye before him. A woman at his side, older, more powerful. She supported the magic like the frame beneath a vine, but all Rain could think about was him. 

There were others with him. Other ghouls. Not near him, but connected to him as well as to each other. Quintessence, golden and black and sparkling with life and stars in an equal measure that every nerve told him should not be possible. Fire, bright and hot and bursting with energy even under the heavy pall that tried to suppress it. He had met fire ghouls, quintessence ghouls. They burned too brightly for him, overpowered him. Not these two. Something in them seemed to ache for something deep within him, like they would complete it. Like it would complete them. He longed, for the first time in his life, to reach out to another and be part of them.

THEY NEED YOU, MY SON. 

Noise. Music. The music, it called out to him like a summoning. It wanted him. 

He wanted it. It was so, so selfish, when all he would do was hold them back, but he wanted it with all of his being. 

WILL YOU GO TO THEM? WILL YOU DO MY WORK WITH THEM AND BE FAITHFUL TO MY CHOSEN ONE? 

“Dark Father, I beg You, for Your own sake, choose another. One with strength.”

IS THE STRENGTH OF YOUR MIND NOT ENOUGH?

Rain laughed bitterly. “My mind is not strong.” 

IT HAS SURVIVED SO LONG, MY SON. YOU BELIEVE YOUR SIBLINGS TO BE SO MUCH STRONGER THAN YOU, BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BUCKLE UNDER A BURDEN HALF THE WEIGHT OF YOUR OWN. OTHERS WOULD BREAK TO SPLINTERS, EVEN SURROUNDED BY A FAMILY WILLING TO OFFER THEIR ARMS. AND YET YOU WALK ALONE, DAY AFTER DAY, FALTER AND STUMBLE BUT NEVER EVER FALL. DO YOU NOT CALL THAT STRENGTH? 

He swallowed quietly, blinking away the tears that threatened to flow from his eyes. “I… Will try to. I will be what You need, my Father, as well as I am able.” 

He had never felt the weight of his father’s pride. But he knew it would never feel as good as that which he knew he had inspired now. 

THEY WILL STAND WITH YOU FOR AS LONG AS YOU LET THEM. LET THEM, RAIN. BE MY UNITY. SHOW THE LOYALTY OF MY WORLD TO THE HUMANS. The hand on his cheek moved softly, praising him for his faith. TRUST IS NOT EASY, MY SON, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU HAVE FELT THE AGONY OF BETRAYAL. I KNOW IT TOO WELL. IT BITES AND SNARLS AND WAITS FOR YOU TO FALL AGAIN. BUT YOU WILL NOT. I FORBID IT. AS WILL THEY. 

The roar of a thousand waterfalls filled him as the inky-blackness of distant depths surrounded him all at once.