#levatus

virtues . 

levatus . revival // veritas . truth // virtus . strength // sophus . wisdom // animus . soul // exstasis . euphoria

32: I came to say goodbye.

these are characters from a bigger story i’m working on and it just so happened that this fits an exchange i had been meaning to write between the two of them so if you would like to meet them:

levatus on the left, veritas on the right, portraits done by the wonderful @omnificent-orion. they’re a little older in the pictures than they would have been in this sequence, probably by about 5 years or so. i hope you guys like them, feel free to ask if you have any questions about them!

//

Levatus had no concept of “goodbye.”

They had avoided the necessity of saying such things by dancing around them, turning it into “I’ll see you next year” or “Until next time,” turning it into an expectation rather than a separation. Hardly surprising that Levatus, representing as they did the principle that even death itself can be reversed, was unsettled by claims of finality. They never felt true enough for the heartbreak that always seemed to come with them. And years with Veritas had taught Levatus to shy away from lies.

Though it may have backfired in the end. Levatus had an uncanny ability to tell the truth while hiding it. It had been necessary, they told themselves whenever the gut punch of guilt kept them from sleeping.

You have to protect him even if that means you can’t give him what he wants.

It had been happening slowly, the corrosion of their reality. What they expected to be true. What they hoped was a lie. Not the kinds of truths and lies that Veritas was used to judging, but statements that change from honest to false depending on the person making them. On what that person believes.

For example, “it’s completely justified” was a lie coming from the researcher who tried to convince them that the practice Levatus referred to sarcastically as “double jeopardy” would ultimately be a painless and ethical one.

“It’s worth it,” Cadence said, and this was the truth. He believed it to be the truth, which only dug the horror deeper into their heart, that Levatus had known a man so different, that they had been so sickeningly wrong about the nature of his soul.

There is nothing you can say to make this right.

“They won’t even feel it the second time,” the researcher had said.

“And that’s all you need. To, to justify bringing them back to life just to throw them into a meat grinder. Of course. They’ll be too disoriented to understand what’s happening to them. They’ll be scared and relieved and confused and then they’ll have their lives ripped out a second time. Very humane.”

“It’s not a meat grinder.”

“It may as well be.”

//

Rose gold light melted down the wings of marble angels perching on the cathedral the Church of Truth occupied. Levatus couldn’t remember the last time they had been up before dawn, but the last time they had the sun had risen over the two of them together, asleep against a spire. Veritas had been twenty minutes late to his own service, and had played it off as a dramatic entrance with all the finesse for which he was so beloved by his congregants.

The necessity of goodbyes only became apparent to them once they considered leaving without one. How much easier it would be.

How much they would hate themself for not having insisted on seeing his face one last time, because this did, in fact, look to be the last time. There were certain things Levatus knew to be points of no return, and they were fairly certain they had just torn through their last chance at smoothing this one over, even had they wanted to stay.

They did not want to stay, and they did not want to leave him, and they did not have a choice. It was a bad decision for both of them, and Levatus knew it was what they would both want.

They knew where to find him, and they knew how to break into the church cellar where the two of them used to sift clumsily through wine racks, trying not to giggle too loudly; they knew which steps to take on their way up to the roof such as not to creak the entire street awake. How many times had they and Veritas made this clandestine entrance? Were these memories, too, something Levatus had to say goodbye to?

“You’re up,” Veritas said. They had tried to open the door quietly, but it never did matter with him.

He patted the stone without looking up, leaning his head on Levatus’s shoulder as soon as they had slid to his side. Levatus pushed loose strands of hair back into his bun and tried not to think about how fragile Veritas was, how he didn’t seem to be getting any taller, and for all his power, a well-placed knife could—and I won’t be—

They swallowed hard enough for him to notice. Veritas leaned back and gave them a look that was almost accusatory.

“You okay?”

Veritas hated that question. He had complained, on multiple occasions, that it was nearly unheard of for people to respond to it truthfully, because no one really means “yes,” and no one wants to hear “no.”

“No,” Levatus said. Veritas’s eyes flashed once. Truth.

“What happened to you? You look—”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“You—” Single flash again and he rolled his eyes, rarely so frustrated with honesty. “Why? Why won’t you?”

“I believe that is the best way to keep you safe.”

“Is that—?”

Levatus tried to pull away but Veritas was faster and he held their long fingers delicately, as though he were afraid they would break, or that what was there would rub off on him. He stared at it, eyes wide.

He’s only a child.

Veritas was fourteen. Levatus was fifteen.

We both are.

They were far too young to know how to feel the depth of what raged inside them, but rage it did, and it threatened to consume them, all of them, and they did know how to be afraid. Of themselves. Of their enemies. Of the people who believed in them.

“Levatus,” Veritas murmured slowly, “is this blood?”

You’ll never lie to me?

I will never lie to you.

You’re telling the truth. You mean that.

I mean it.

For now.

Forever.

“Yes. It’s blood.”

“Whose?”

“I won’t tell you that.”

“Levatus—

“Look, we don’t have a lot of—I came to—there’s no easy way to say goodbye, is there?”

“To say—what?” He scrambled to his feet. “Lev, you’re fucking with me, right? You can’t—”

“I have to leave. I believe that have no other choice.”

Eyes flash once. Truth.

“Damn,” Veritas muttered. He turned his back and paced the length of the rooftop. “Damn it. Damn it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Don’t apologize to me. Have you told the others?”

“You’re the only one. I came to say goodbye. I don’t have time to—I don’t even have time to say it to you. But it was gonna kill me if I didn’t, you know? You’re my—I’m going to miss you the most.”

When Veritas looked up, tears had already welled high enough to start streaking down his cheeks. “Oh, no.”

“Veritas—?”

“You meant that,” he croaked, and threw his arms around Levatus with such force he nearly toppled both of them. They let him stain their jacket with his sobs, stroking his hair as they watched the sun rise over the city skyline. Another sight to say goodbye to.

After Veritas fell silent, they finally chuckled. “You gonna miss me that much, huh?”

Veritas snorted. “What kind of a stupid question—”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“It’s really not.”

“No. I guess not. But Veritas, I—”

“You have to go.”

“It’s not safe for me here anymore.”

Veritas closed his eyes, restraining himself from repeating earlier questions that he knew would only be carefully and truthfully avoided once again. He wanted to say a million things to his friend. He wanted to tell them that he could not conceive of going a whole day without hearing their voice. He wanted to tell them that he did not know who to live for if they were gone. He felt that there was something incredibly important that he needed Levatus to know, and he could not for the life of him remember what that was.

But Veritas, despite his extraordinary ways, was a teenage boy, barely aware of the things he felt in his own right, so all he said was: “Okay.”

Levatus surprised him by planting a soft, cool kiss on his forehead. He stiffened but didn’t pull back.

“Be safe,” Levatus murmured. “Don’t get killed. I won’t be around to bring you back.”

“You stay alive too, okay? For me?”

“Sure.”

“And don’t turn into a liar just because I’m not there to call you on it.”

Levatus smiled and turned their back so that he wouldn’t see the tears. “I would never.”

//

By the time Veritas remembered what it was he had so desperately wanted to tell them, they had vanished. He pushed the pit in his stomach back down where it couldn’t touch him and he wrote a letter, he sealed it and hid it somewhere safe, because he refused to believe that goodbye was for forever.

hello lgbt community

Levatus -

6. Describe their eyes.

not to be LAZY but

they are like THIS and sometimes like

THIS as well

7. What’s their handwriting like?

they write in all caps for emphasis and out of spite and they refuse to ever punctuate anything at all directly because they were once told that a person in their station should be doing it correctly so if you got a long text from them it would just look like a giant run on screaming sentence and i personally think that is very iconic of them

11. How many times have they fallen in love?

only the one babey!

Virtus -

12. How many people broke their hearts?

1.5 since the first time it was bc she was unaware that she even had the crush because she had not had her Gay Awakening yet and she didn’t know why she was so devastated about it just kinda like “huh this is weird and terrible” and the second time it was one of those We Can’t Be Together things so they are both 0.75 of a heartbreak

Veritas -

8. Any phobias?

extremely and irrationally afraid of snakes he is scared a giant snake is going to crush him one day he cannot tell anyone why bc he doesn’t know. he is just kind of scared of getting crushed to death in general and is not self aware enough to explain it

19. What were their parents like?

just for that im bringing in levatus

32. dust motes

“I thought they would have…”“Would have what?”“…Never mind.”

Repurposed? Preserved?

As though the air itself is heavy with rigor mortis, motes of dust suspended where twilight leaked through the shattered glass, unmoving. Something else to sacrifice for. Something else to save.

“Looks like no one’s been here in years.”

They look up at broken windows, down at splintered roots and overturned pews.

“They haven’t,” Veritas tells them.“Why?”“After the raids…”“Raids.”“They said a lot of things about you.”They sigh. “Right, I knew—of course.”“Would have felt sacrilegious. Or like trying to get in a coffin with the corpse.”“I wasn’t dead.”“You may as well have been.”“You knew I wasn’t.”

He looks at Levatus like they’re the only thing that has ever happened to him, because for an instant he that he knows to be the truth.

“Yes,” he says at last. “I knew.”

Levatus smiles at him and the dark circles bruising the skin under their eyes deepen almost imperceptibly as a stream of resurrected roses begins to push back up through the floorboards. Tree roots twitch back to life, new wood papering over old fissures.