Eyebrows scrunched up and lifted up as he listened quietly, keeping his hand still. Trying to ignore the warmth spreading into his palm.

“You thought,” Callisto picked his hand up, just grazing his fingers over Xevon’s arm before settling to reach up and gently rest on the other man’s jaw. “I was dead. Gone, moved on type of dead.” While it wasn’t a pleasant thing to break back into the hotel and find, could Callisto truly be angry? No, not one bit. Callisto’s lips were split into the smallest of smiles, a glaze over his eyes as he kept his emotions on a short leash, not that it stopped the tightness in his chest.

“If you are so sure, I forgive you.” His head tilted to the side, the thumb on his jaw brushing against the skin for a moment. Then as though catching himself doing something forbidden, lifted his hand away from Xevon’s face and pinned it back to himself.

–

Despite the uncanny finding and the not so enjoyable situation, Lily found herself almost snorting out a laugh at Alma’s rhetorical question.

“If he thought for more than two seconds, we would all be saved a lot of trouble sometimes.” She teased gently, her expression returning to a smile. “Who knows what my father was thinking. We always sent two at a time and - “ She stopped, faltering as she realised she was talking about these people sent to death like they were something inconsequential. “I-I mean, it was what he always did. Pairs.” Her eyes flickered back over the book from where she was leaning against Finn.

“Either way, I am glad my father didn’t send me alone. I’d be his prized breeding cow by now.” Lily gave a dramatic shiver at the comment, moving a hand to grasp Finntello’s arm that was holding the book, still staring down at the dusty tome.

“Where are all the others then? If they denounced Veles, what happened to them?”

There was a small hitch in his breathing. That was all he managed for a period after Xevon had finished speaking. Callisto stood there, eyes flashing with a messy mixture of emotions, clearly trying to figure out his own thoughts.

“But did you mean it?” He finally asked. “Did you mean what you said to him, do you want me to suffer?” He already knew the answer, at least he hoped he already did. If Xevon came back with the opposite, he wasn’t sure his heart could take it. They never had been very good at figuring out whatever this was between them. They were still dancing around each other like children. Even the terminology they used wasn’t exactly befitting their relationship, cheating would imply something more than yearning.

“You can not blame yourself for past decisions for the rest of your life.” He settled on that as his final thought. What was the point in escaping if they were to dwell on their mistakes, things they would go back and change. There would be no point.

–

Her eyes flicked up as he looked down at her, meeting his gaze.

“Magic?” She offered a little weakly, but this world all seemed to be a strange mess of reality and fantasy. Two of them had wings and two of them were cats, she wouldn’t exactly say this was a normal, predictable situation.

“Whatever it is, I’m just glad we have somewhere to sleep that isn’t rubble. I think I would have frozen last night if it weren’t for your wings.” Lily leaned back up, arching her back and lifting her arms above her head in a theatrical stretch. It did feel good, a small pop as she released some trapped tendon in her spine.

Callisto found himself a little stuck for words here, he had started out on this conversation rather level headed. Carefully selecting his words, but now he didn’t know what he was going to do. He was lost in his own mind until that name cut through his ears and his eyes lifted to Xevon’s mop of hair again. He wasn’t going to immediately press him, that would only make him curl up into a tighter ball of defence.

“If you view things you have done in the past as mistakes, does that not make you a better man now? That you have grown since then?” He tried to ask lightly. He wanted to give in and ask outright, then again he wanted to give in and let himself be eaten whole by Xevon’s embrace. Callisto wasn’t an idiot, he could control himself. Well..decently enough.

“Whoever Vincent is, I would give him a right talking to if he made fun of you for all this.” He huffed out, giving one short look towards the door to the cottage. He could hear them inside, chattering away like sparrows.

–

“It was freezing.” Lily cooed out as she let her torso righten itself, tossing her hair to one side to look over at Alma. “I think we could handle it if things went pear shaped, providing the owner ever shows up while we’re here.” She chimed before heaving herself up from the sofa, pottering around the cozy room.

What she wanted to know was…”Aha!” She piped up after gently pushing open one of the doors in the kitchen. “There is a bed!” She opened the door more completely to show the modest white sheeted bed and heavy wooden furniture.

“At least some of us won’t be sleeping on the couch and floor tonight.”

Almost instantly, Callisto felt like a moron. This was much more heavy than he anticipated, obviously he knew that Xevon had suffered through horrible situations. They had never spoken about it in depth, to this extent. It was beyond belief that they were even talking about it now. His brother, the cult, his father. The long line of disappointment, fighting for approval, war, gore. This poor man had it all.

Suddenly Callisto’s hardships seemed insignificant. He was an idiot.

He didn’t want to push on the topic of tearing apart a woman, the other things didn’t seem like an ask about it statement either.

“People lose their minds. Being trapped in a place like that for a year is enough to make someone lose themselves, we were there decades.” Callisto did not reach up to Xevon like he wanted to, he hadn’t missed the flinch that he had given upon the last brush of contact.

“It does not excuse anything you have done, but all you can do is work to be that better version of yourself.” He should have stopped there, but his next words left his lips before he was thinking straight. “I want to help you do that. I want to stay with you, past this..whatever this place is. I cannot lose you again.” Callisto kept himself steady, making sure his seriousness was getting across. He wasn’t making some flimsy short-term infatuation dictate his life, he felt like his organs had been ripped from his body all over again when he showed up on Earth without Xevon. He never thought he would feel so distraught over being separated like that, but the agony that ripped through him in those first few minutes felt like it was going to kill him.

–

Lily almost fell over her own legs as Alma all but shoved Finntello in behind her, catching herself by sticking an arm out to steady herself on the wall. Her head turned to look back over her shoulder to Finn, a hesitant smile on her lips.

“She’s playing matchmaker, you know that right?” She was teasing, but it was mostly right. Why else would his mother figure heave him into a room with a woman.

Lily took a few more steps into the room and peeked around, there was a small candle burning on the lone nightstand beside the bed that was tucked up into the corner. Patchwork duvets covered it with endless plush pillows. It looked awfully comfortable.

Simply seeing his shoulders droop down after carrying himself so straight-backed since arriving in this place made Callisto’s rib cage tighten and changed his breathing pattern. The overflow of information that Xevon had just supplied him would take another day for him to work through, to figure out any intricacies that were hidden behind his words.

For a split second, he felt guilty about dragging Xevon out of the hotel. The thought that he may have been more content staying where he was in dismissive bliss rather than being thrust into this mess.

“I am sorry, Xevon.” He met Xevon with a similarly lowered voice. In truth, the only person he would let hurt him would be the man before him, whether or not he would allow it on purpose or not. He couldn’t help the incessant need to pander to Xevon’s needs.

“We do not have to talk about anymore, if you want that is.” As he spoke, Callisto turned so that his back was able to meet the wall beside Xevon again. However, this time he settled just beside the curled wing, close enough to brush against it if Xevon moved them a little bit too far.

He didn’t think Xevon could hurt him, at least in a way that would ruin him. Everything short of ruining him, Callisto could manage. There was no point in voicing these thoughts out loud, Xevon would counter them with the opposite, it would be best to keep quiet now. For a brief while, he did stay quiet.

“Can we return to the familiarity we had before? Or is that not something we will be able to do?” Callisto wasn’t happy with his wording of those questions, he had meant it to sound slightly more emotional and less corporate.

–

Lily had been slowly stepping around the small room, only when she turned to look over at Finn as he flopped down onto the bed did she note just how much space he took up in the room.

“You look like a giant in here.” She laughed quietly, taking the couple steps to close the distance between herself and the bed. She stood in front of him, tilting her head down the tiniest bit to catch his eyes, observing for a moment and appreciating the view.

“I’m always tired.” She offered with a bemused smile, lifting her hand to push back the few locks of hair that were hanging over his forehead.