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IC INBOX ( KENOS ).
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█ To Commune with Set is to stand barefoot in an endless, scorching desert. The sun illuminates all, scalding the shadows themselves out from underneath whomever enters his dominion; the arch of gentle, distant, waves of sand mask the precarious chasms, towering dunes akin to mountains. The sense of vastness, timelessness, is of particular notice, lending itself to the alien, eldritch quality of his mind. There is a dark storm in the distance, and you know intimately that this divine being is far from benign. You cannot bargain with a force of nature. You can only survive it. |
cw the usual toxicity between them
( Do not make him beg, not again. He will lower himself to it, he will do anything he has to. ) ]
When you accepted my challenge, Minegishi Gen. That if I won, I would take you somewhere you could be new and precious. That's when you asked me.
[ In truth, he did expect Gen to break his promise. Not because he's Gen, but because nobody ever really keeps their promise to a traitor-god, a god of betrayers and schemers and evil. This must be what he reaps, he thinks, blinded with the sudden wash of something empty and cold. His mind blinkers out, as if suddenly, he has stopped existing all together. Like he is gone, and all that is left is a memory of him. ( Like he has slipped away, like he will, if Gen breaks this between them. )
( He thinks — if Gen does this, he will deny him everything. He will make sure Gen lives eternally, alone, unseen and locked away in a space so small he cannot draw breath into his lungs, until he cannot remember who he did this for at all. ) ]
I wanted you to choose me, [ he whispers, finally. A rasp in his voice. The same thing he has said, because no matter what Gen thinks, it is the truth. Whether he thought he would lie or betray him or not, there was still the terrible, yearning desire that Gen would see Set's promise for irrefutable truth. That he wouldn't have to test the limits of it, until someone breaks. ] I thought you could break your word, because... you want to win, too. You want to die, more than anything else.
[ He still cannot exist in the join of their minds, emptied out and hidden as he is. Inches from throwing himself into Gen's arms and pleading. He has no dignity, Osiris ensured he would never have pride or dignity or power when it comes to Anubis ever again. Maybe that is why he is drawn to Gen — because in some ways, he fills a space where someone once was. ( He cannot, he cannot think that way, because Gen is Gen. He is horrible and cruel, but he is also the boy who Set held in his arms in the roots and promised to fight against and for. )
Instead, he snaps: ]
'Being there' for someone like you, is just what I want to do. You annoying brat! I want it, and I will not be told I cannot have it because you have it in your head that you can get what you want by acting like this! Amos Burton can tell me to stay away from you all he wants, people can look at me as if I am a traitor to Meridian's stupid, disgusting cause — ! I do not care, I want what I want!
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( -- 'I will carry you with me, and treat you preciously as someone new in our next life.' Those words from Set haunt him, whispering to him from somewhere deep in his heart no matter how hard he tries to smother them. Happiness isn't meant for him. He knows it as fact. Minegishi Gen was never meant to for happiness, and will wither and rot in the end. But foolishly, desperately, selfishly, he can't help yearning for it, and Set's promise of happiness in another place, in another life, as another person, is perhaps the only way he can permit himself that desire.
Just as much as he hates himself for hungry for Set's pain, he hates himself for being unable to give up on that distant hope. He hates Set for having offered him that lifeline, and hates Set for being so magnetic as to making it seem viable. He hates Set for being his distant sun. ) ]
... should you be raisin' your voice against me like that?
[ His words remains as demeaning as ever, a barbed reminder to Set of what exactly is at stake here. But there's an exhaustion there, now, and a weight to his words. Anger is always harder to maintain once its lost its momentum, after all; spite might carry him through the rest of this act, but it lacks the drive of rage in this moment, requiring him to willfully claw his way forward.
He can't back off, can he? It'd defeat the entire purpose of issuing a threat in the first place. If he backs off now and shows Set any mercy, then how can he retain any control in the future? ( 'Why didn't you let me be there for you when you needed someone on your side?' Those words, too, keep ringing in his ears. His head hurts. He wants to stop thinking. ) He didn't do anything wrong; all he'd done was what had to be done to keep Reiji safe. There had been no other choice.
The landscape of Gen's mind quiets further, though Set will probably find no comfort in this. ]
I've heard enough from you. [ Gen's response comes flat and ironed flat, like he's willfully tried to purge the emotions from his words. ] I'm done with this talk.
[ What of the jars? He doesn't know. -- he'll deal with them. He'll shatter them like he's supposed to. Later. A bit later. Just after he's rested. But he will, he will. He has to. ]
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[ Raise his voice to Gen, he means.
Set's voice falls to a rasp, that dry and harsh little whisper that always comes from deep below his sternum. He is not a small man, not a slight creature, but one of strong, lean muscle and a beauty that transcends a given binary; in the clutch of their minds, his brow knits, red and tight and wrinkled in the middle as his mouth pulls down. Down further, and smooths out from a frown into a wobbling line. A shaking thing, his sharp teeth pressing into the back edge of his bottom lip. Biting until he tastes blood.
In that moment, he does fear Gen. As much as he wants to sink his teeth into him and drag him out of his hole like a wayward pup, fling him to the dirt and slap him until he cries. Bite him, until he's so scarred he cannot see himself save for what Set's done to him. He wants him to never be able to put their promise away again, no matter what they do to one another — because, even though Gen threatened his son, even though Set was and remains inches from giving in and fleeing to Zenith and betraying them entirely,
he has to dig his heels in. He has to think he can have it all.
Even though Gen irons himself flat. Lusterless and black, bleak and silent. Set's heart hammers against his rib cage, his throat constricts and his hands reach toward the young man as he draws back, as he calls them 'done'. ]
Gen —
[ He calls his name, once. Tries to speak on experience, because there is a similarity between them. Before Gen goes, before he silences their connection entirely, before he gives into that great dark thing inside of himself and breaks something because he has to ( set understands, but he does not give gen anything from his mind, not right now ). He just has to say it, before the connection closes: ]
I think, Reiji and Anubis have had enough of people using them to hurt us. Of being hurt by others. Consider it.
no subject
That concession is the only reason he permits the connection stay open long enough for Set to speak his piece.
( '-- have had enough of people using them to hurt us.' An image flashes just briefly, dragged so violently to the forefront of Gen's mind that Set must be able to see it, if only for a split second. A beautiful woman, all pale hair and soft eyes and a doting smile, along with the phantom sensation of fingers brushing down his throat. But along with her, she brings a blood-curdling, stomach-churning wave of hatred and dread and hurt. ) ]
I told you before, didn't I. [ That image is dragged back into the darkness, like choking back a wave of nausea. Gen grits his words, quietly, past metaphorical clenched teeth; Set must be able to picture how pallid his face is, from the strain in his voice. ] Don't go talking like you know anything about him.
[ And if the note of finality in his words weren't indication enough, maybe what follows will be enough to shut Set up.
Gen's vision, channeled right through to Set. The same cliff, the same dry wind stinging at the skin, the same scent of dirt and cold air that sting against the nose. The same darkness that waits below as one of the jars hurtles off the edge of the cliff, spinning top over bottom as it goes plummeting out of sight.
-- is Set lucid enough to pick up on them? The tiny, tiny hints that suggest that something isn't right. There'd been no sound of pottery gritting against dirt, no thump of a bootsole kicking that precious object over the edge, no whistle of the wind against those curved edges as the jar sailed into oblivion. It's only an image, after all -- a Silent Image that Gen has cast hurtling over the edge of the cliff into the darkness, meant to teach Set a lesson and punish him for presuming to know anything about Reiji.
But whether Set can fight back his distress enough to notice those little hints or not doesn't matter. Gen barely lets the image sink in before slamming the connection between them shut. ]