fate and fortune

 

He lives his life in dirt and deceit; a worthless continuation of his wretched pride, clutching at mighty deities with raw hands until his nails dig into the marrow of his bones. This, trembling above a near-pristine corpse that reflects upon him every barbarity of his sins, isn't happiness.

 

Many people, Florent knows, live to find a "happiness". A scarce majority drift through a cycle of existence without ever finding one – their hearts are desolate, scraped empty by endless trial and error. Others feed off of the hopelessness; find the bitter taste of their own suffering to be intoxicating, out of spite for their mythical predecessors.

 

Florent, with Ezra's blood dripping deep red from his knife, is convinced he is no less.

 

The victory is not as saccharine as the ancient canticles of war and glory so frequently acclaim. Florent doesn't get down on his knees in devout genuflection for something like this – not for something so thankless, so devoid of all meaning and sympathy.

 

He has no control over this, is what he wants to believe – he'd been raised up from ignorance and indelicacy, he hadn't known any better, holding enough of the cosmos in his tiny hands as a boy until they were too much for him to handle. He had learned his worth since then, had found his baptism in devils and daemons.

 

Florent isn't sure how he's been pinned down one second, eyes shut the other – but when he opens them again, he distantly notices that they're wet with tears. I'm crying.

 

The epiphany is enough to yank him out of his fragile interlude.

 

"Do you wish me dead?" His voice doesn't go past a whisper; he's almost surprised by how bemused he sounds.

 

Calloused hands grab at his collar. Florent doesn't bring himself to look, deems it useless – but he's vaguely aware that the other must be sprouting tears, too. He hears them in the shaky exhales of breath, feels them in the way the other's fingers desperately holds onto him, like he'll dissolve into smoke any minute. Florent thinks about how vulnerable they are right now, thinks about how easy it'd be to tear himself away, to draw his blade out and take, the pride brooding deep in his bloodstream, quiet and instinctive, keeping him idle until it needs him to act.

 

It would be easy, too easy. He could do it. 

 

He doesn't.

 

"You traitor, you foolish, cold—" Their voice cracks at an uneasy staccato. It's such a frightening contrast to its usual sweet, resonate melody. It sounds so broken that Florent feels an idle restriction in his chest, pulling a heart he hadn't known he possessed taut against his ribcage. He doesn't want to look, doesn't know what he'd do if he does, doesn't know he'd see – but he does.

 

Ah, Florent thinks. He really is crying.

 

Aengus is still pretty like this, Florent realizes dimly, and it's a sick and shameful contemplation, while watching the tears prickle at their eyes and slip down their cheeks, just trying to keep the tremor out of their voice and anchor themselves steady. There's nothing graceful about falling apart, he had believed previously, but Aengus does in a way that is inordinately delicate, all crystalline eyes and florid movements, likewise to that of an ephemeral being. It dawns on him that he had fallen for Aengus at some point – and that perhaps, if he'd been a good person, if he hadn't spent his life dedicated to corrupt divinities and heartless aspirations – he would have given his entire heart to Aengus, as if they were a pair of destined lovers.

 

Florent follows a strand of hair that drops to their forehead – it's instinct that moves him to brush it away with the softest touch of his fingers. Aengus never notices.

 

Aengus's head falls forward until it rests on his chest. Florent sees it as irredeemably inappropriate to let his hand thread through the tenderness of their hair – he merely lets it hover, flexing useless fingers.

 

"Why did you do it?" they whisper, so weak and tentative that Florent almost misses it.

 

He gazes away, letting his attention drift to the bloodied dagger beside him. There is no true purpose for him now, he realizes. "Who knows?" Florent scoffs; it's not real, is what he wants to believe. "Revolution is a peculiar thing. Casualties are inevitable; they are nothing more than unfortunate sacrifices. There is not much else to say."

 

It is pitiless, the way the words come out of his mouth like acid bile, but he understands the role he needs to play. Aengus reacts instantly, one hand tight but bearable around his neck, thumb pressed loosely against his windpipe. Florent watches them blink back angry tears. "She fucking trusted you. Ezra loved you, so don't you fucking say to me that she was nothing but an unfortunate sacrifice for your useless, merciless cause, because—"

 

Florent laughs; it comes out rough and gravelly. "Because what? You won't forgive me?"

 

"I will kill you," Aengus spats.

 

Florent curls his fingers around Aengus's wrist, urging them forward until their hand is almost closed entirely around his throat. "Then why don't you?" Florent's grip tightens. "I am completely at your sweet mercy, o holy one."

 

"Don't fool around like this is some fucking sick joke," Aengus grinds out, tear-stained and ruined, eyeing Florent as if he's the most vile thing they've seen – it burns more than he had anticipated. "You never changed, Florent. No matter how much love I or anyone gives you, that hunger is still there." 

 

Florent decides then that he could die like this, condemned to eternal fire, if it is what he'd needed to take even a bit of the remorse away.

 

"What would you like me to say, then? That I'd trusted you with every secret? Every bitter memory. Every loss, every unreleased woeful tune. But there is one thing I never told you." Florent tries to keep his tone level with every syllable. "And if there is one thing you'll never understand, it is this."

 

He shifts until he can reach out for his blade; he presses the hilt into Aengus's palm, guides them with his own hand until the blade lingers just above his heart.

 

Florent looks up, then, his fingers tense around Aengus's. They could have been a deity, for all Florent knew. Carved in light, sketched out in sharp, curlicued lines, and raised upon a golden pedestal. It is unfortunate – he wonders vaguely that perhaps, if he'd been a good person, Aengus would have given him their heart, too.

 

"You showed me love, but that is something I can never return to you," Florent says, looking until all he can see is lavender.

 

"So live, now, and forget me."

 

He doesn't quite register immediately when he pushes the knife down and through his chest, as he watches starlight dissipate underneath his eyelids, sees the dim silhouette of a red god crumble before his feet – somnum nunc pueri innocentes, it says to him.

 

Florent sleeps to soft whispers and the feel of Aengus's hand still in his – and then, there is nothing.