Summertime Sadness, Part II [Urs]

[Sivan]

What is it doing? Exael asked. Sivan didn't really have an answer. It his behavior due to the intoxicants it can't process in a timely manner? Sivan would have to come back around to the celestial creature throwing shade in his mind, but just at the moment, the drunk man he was babysitting had locked lips with him. He tasted of lager still and, perhaps through Sivan's rune, loneliness. It resonated with something similar within him, though he didn't seek to remedy loneliness with companionship because that always seemed to lead to even more troubles.

He didn't pull away. It wasn't unpleasant. He just didn't really know what he was supposed to do. Flower had done similar to him sometimes in his sleep before he had taken a downward turn and Sivan had been forced to take desperate measures to save his life—a Living Grave, or so Destyn had called it. The translation of the spell from the Rivach hadn't used those words, but now there was a fae'ethalan hibernating in a tree in his back yard, but that wasn't something he told just anybody.

But Urs' lips were still pressed to his and his hands still held onto Sivan's. When he had made the delivery to the Velvet Cabaret, people had been kissing with open mouths, and it had looked almost like they were trying to devour each other.

Perhaps Urs was just hungry.

Blue eyes remained wide open, trying to gauge the situation, but of course, he didn't have experience with people kissing him really. Torin could be affectionate, but that didn't mean anything beyond friendship—the other apprentice was deeply in love with someone else. Not that Sivan was a stickler for monogamy; he just wasn't experienced at all in these things. Had he been too friendly? Was Urs reading all this as an attempt to seduce him? Was he trying to seduce him? Urs was handsome, but aesthetic appreciation didn't usually lead Sivan in any particular direction.

When Urs did finally break off the kiss, Sivan immediately began to speak.

"That was very nice, thank you. I hope you don't think I was demanding anything in particular for teaching you. I mean... the nature of magic is often transactional and energy should always be flowing, but... I mean... Why did you do that?"

He wasn't upset, just confused.

[Urs Wardell]

Gods, his lips are so soft.

Urs pressed his lips against Sivan's. The initial kiss had made his heart skip a beat. He didn't think. No, that was a lie. He did think. He thought that the elf had the softest lips of anyone he'd ever kissed. He thought about holding Sivan's hands tighter and he did. Lager stained his lips and tongue and thoughts and for once, in the whole of tonight, he didn't care.

He didn't care about the buzz in his head or his stomach and he didn't care that his body was driving his actions and he didn't care that he was being obvious and he didn't care that --

-- Urs' spell caught what he couldn't.

There, Sivan's eyes were open. He could feel the blue and he could feel them move and widened and he could feel the shock of blank confusion pointed at him.

Urs pulled away. Red sprouted from his cheeks to all corners of his face. He didn't need magic to feel the heat of his own embarrassment. He watched Sivan and only noticed the blonde of his hair and the blue of the eyes and the complete absence of any desire.

And then the elf spoke.

"Oh, uh -," his tongue fumbled his words. He wasn't thinking quick enough. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "I...I thought that you -," he paused, a sharp breath passing out through his lips. He hated the sudden clarity that overcame him. He was stripped of his bravado and left only with immediate regret.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have," Urs said, already looking around for his things. Hadn't he brought anything? He couldn't remember. Fuck. "I misread the situation. I thought that you wanted -," me, he almost says but doesn't.

[Sivan]

"Please don't... go," he managed, and now he was flushed with embarrassment. He probably ought to have been unable to flush, all the blood going where it ought to, but he was a strange bird or so he had been told on countless occasions. He managed to catch Urs' hand, though he didn't hold on tight. He didn't want the man to feel trapped, though he did feel it incumbent upon him to make sure he learned the basics of summoning so he wasn't a weapon of mass destruction waiting to go off. Giving someone a Cardinal Rune and not teaching them how to control it was negligence to a criminal level in his mind.

"I'm sorry, I... I'm sort of..." He searched for the words in Common. "I focus too much. First on making sure you were all right at the bar, then on making sure you didn't get robbed or attacked on the street, and then with your training so you don't hurt yourself or anyone else. I wasn't thinking of... that... Not because you aren't quite handsome and I think I could like you..." At least, he thought he could get along with Urs; he didn't know what special alchemy was required to make his cock stir. He had thought perhaps Torin... but Torin was in love with someone else. That hadn't stung; he was glad to have a friend at all and Torin was a good one.

"It... ahh... takes me quite a while to warm up to someone... like that. I didn't mean to embarrass you. It's actually flattering. I know I'm strange. I'm sorry. Perhaps someday when I know you better... when I'm comfortable around you... not that I'm uncomfortable... I don't know how to explain it. I seem to do everything wrong when it comes to people. I think that is why I have focused so much on magic...

"I still don't want you to go and get robbed and I still want to help you with your summoning." Perhaps if he trained Urs well, the man would grow to love him and... But it was best not to imagine what was unlikely. Sivan was too much a mess to expect that sort of thing.

"Please stay."

[Urs Wardell]

Urs felt Sivan's hand grasp his own. He winced and he felt his heart stop.

He hated that he could still taste the beer on his tongue and his teeth. He hated that he knew, that if he focused on his lips and mouth and chin, that his magic would see his skin there colored with the beer's stain. The buzz of alcohol lingered there and in his mind and he desperately wished for anything that might steal the want from his soul. Urs hated that his own body and face felt like fire and that he couldn't tell between his own embarrassment and his own desire.

"...you haven't anything to apologize for," he said, his brown eyes trained on the floor between them. He focuses on the floorboards and the way they'd been stained and how he could, if he wanted to, See which would creak under his weight.

"I was graceless. I - ," he starts then stops, allowing a moment of silence to rest between them.

"I misunderstood, not you," he sighs, "I believed I saw that you wanted --," a pause, " -- the same thing as me. You shouldn't apologize. I presumed and you were only kind."

He wished for nothing more in that moment than to die and be done with and forgotten; it'd be easier to be reborn than navigate the tangle of this conversation. Urs wasn't usually so careless. Drink made fools of even the brightest minds, Mother always said. There was nothing good to be found at the bottom of a glass of poison.

He was still holding Sivan's hand and he hated how unwilling he was to let go. How desperate he must have looked.

"I still want to learn from you, but I think --," he looked up for the first time to meet Sivan's gaze, "I wouldn't want you to think I'd take advantage of your generosity."

[Sivan]

"I still want to teach you," he averred, and then Urs was looking him in the eye again. His own remained confused, though not upset.

"I want to teach you so you won't be a danger to yourself or to other people." That was a fact and he would do it whether there was something in it for him or not. Sivan might not have liked the vast majority of people, but he abhorred suffering. He didn't want anyone to suffer, even people he didn't like. And he liked Urs. At least, he thought he did. He was curious whether they would get on when Urs wasn't intoxicated and Sivan just trying to keep him out of trouble.

"If you feel like you have to give something back for the teaching, we can figure something out. That would actually be a good thing—not because I'm demanding, but because nature seeks an equilibrium. Give and take. Balance."

His golden brow furrowed. Sex could certainly be transactional; there was nothing shameful in that so long as it was consensual. There had been times he was curious and considered paying for it, but the more he thought about it, the more he didn't like the thought of it. He would have to pay to get to know them first so he would be comfortable with them, and he didn't have that kind of money. Mostly he ignored his body's demands for those things, instead running or otherwise exerting himself to wear it out.

"But... why do you want that? From me. You don't even know me."

Sivan knew he was odd about almost all interaction with other sentient creatures. He knew that many people did take people home from bars for sex, but he couldn't wrap his mind around it. Perhaps Urs could help him understand.

[Urs Wardell]

Mother had said that everyone started as a small knot, in the beginning. As Life went on, she'd say, Time threaded us with all sorts of colorful experiences until we were spun into something with character; but still, that base knot lingered and its pattern endured throughout the larger work.

Sivan's knot must be Kindness. The elf was compassionate and thoughtful and his words were weighted with all sorts of important virtues; patience and empathy and generosity. His voice was soft and worried and confused.

Or maybe he was projecting. Sivan was offering instruction and magic and hadn't wanted anything in turn. The elf had rejected him fairly and, even then, explained himself and apologized when he was at no fault for what had happened.

Kalazi wasn't the Midden but Sivan didn't act like the Kalazi citizens he'd met so far. The elf seemed to be as foreign as Urs felt.

"...I can pay in money or food," he said, his blush fading, if only slightly. "I'm not a horrible cook. Or I return the favor and teach you some sort of magic or something about medicine." Urs was a witch, after all; and a surgeon's apprentice. He had his own resources to tap, now, and surely he could offer something Sivan wanted to learn.

And at Sivan's final question, Urs' blush returned in force. Yes, that was definitely his own embarrassment. "...I, uh," he pauses, collecting his words, trying to put his own feelings aside and push himself together. "...I don't need to know someone that well, to - well. I think you're attractive. And I thought you thought me attractive, as well. And that you wanted...what I did."

There wasn't much more to say than that. He wondered if it was an elf thing. It was strange to think that people needed anything beyond a shared attraction; of course, aside from the conversation affirming that mutual attraction and desire for immediate intimacy.

[Sivan]

Sivan smiled broadly, strangely happy but extremely embarrassed at the same time. Golden cheeks flushed and he looked away.

"Thank you," he said sincerely, then looked up, steeling himself to meet Urs' gaze. "You are also quite handsome. I think I am very strange. It isn't that I don't notice people are beautiful, but I don't tend to have... feelings like that... not for a lot longer time than other people. So I think people assume I will never be interested. Or they get tired of waiting. I don't really know. I am not good with people. Perhaps when I know you better, my body will decide some things for me..."

He didn't want to make promises, not knowing when he might cross that threshold of being comfortable enough with Urs that his body would react the way most people's bodies did, or if they were destined to be nothing more than friends and colleagues. But a part of him was flattered and hopeful, at least.

"Why don't we wait to talk about payment until we have done some work together?" he offered. "You can bring food or something if you would like to share in the meantime, but I might be interested in an exchange of knowledge, as well. He smiled again, this time thinking it might be easier to integrate new knowledge into a more holistic wisdom since he had bonded with a celestial spirit of wisdom.

There is a problem with your reproductive organ? It asked.

No! he replied, though there very well might have been. He didn't know what was wrong with him that an attractive man kissing him didn't make his body respond in kind. But time would tell unless Urs chose not to come back.

He gave his hand a tentative squeeze.

"Does that sound good?"

[Urs Wardell]

Urs flustered at the compliment.

"I'd be happy to pay in food or knowledge," he said, smiling. The rejection stung, but Sivan had eased him away from his own embarrassment. "I don't want you to think that I'd expect anything. I'd be happy to be friends. It'd be nice to just have...someone. I don't know many people here, in the Upper City, either as friends or lovers."

Learning summoning was a boon on its own, but the chance of friendship was something Urs would savor. He'd enjoy the physicality of something more, but that wasn't especially needed, not as much as a simple connection. Something to anchor him here, something to look forward to, outside of his apprenticeship. "I'd be happy, as friends. I'd be nice to have a friend, here."

[Sivan]

"Friends would be a good place to start, I think," he said with what he hoped was a comforting smile. It was at the least sincere, but he did have a tendency to effect the wrong responses from people, so he could never be sure. Urs hadn't released his hand, at least, so there was still a bit of a physical connection, which the human seemed to crave.

An animal desire, Exael mused. But natural given you are animals. Perhaps there is something faulty. Who fixes these things?

Could we have this discussion when I am not in the middle of another conversation? he asked. He wanted to develop a permanent rapport with his celestial companion.

"If you want to stay for the night, I can promise your safety."

He straightened his shoulders and called Exael forth. Sivan began to shine with a pale white light, and then the celestial extracted itself from his flesh, its first time doing so since their concordant. It didn't quite have a consistent shape, but it was made of light and aether, limbs and wings appearing and disappearing as it needed them. While it might certainly be a frightening appearance, it also seemed to exude a sense of benevolence.

At least, it did for Sivan, but the celestial had already helped him in many ways.

"This is Exael, from the celestial plane. It can watch over us while we sleep, make sure neither of us picks the other's pocket while he sleeps." He offered a goofy grin with the bad joke and spread the hand that wasn't held. "It might have judgmental things to say, but I like to imagine it comes from a place of love? I don't know. Is this too much?"

With his luck, Urs would run screaming into the night and get knifed by some opportunist footpad and Sivan's attempt to help would have proven counterproductive.

[Urs Wardell]

"I'll stay."

And he released Sivan's hands.

It felt strange, to stay. There weren't many things outside these walls that'd scare him. And of those that would try, less had the power to do so. He'd sense a threat before it sensed him and he'd flee. He could see the worry there, dampening Sivan's aura despite the Eidolon's light. That strange sense of chivalry.

And then he glowed.

"Hello, Exael. I appreciate your help."

He looked back at Sivan. "...it both is and it isn't. You have been kind and caring, which is surprising - at least to me. I'll sleep on the floor; I'm not sure if we should share a bed, at least not for tonight."