What Rubedo doesn't realize is that he doesn't need to say anything at all. They're both inside and right next to each other—Albedo feels their union in every one of his hypothetical cells, a holy and resonant synchronicity he hasn't experienced since before they were born. Knowing what he knows now, he thinks perhaps in previous iterations of this universe they weren't even two people at all. Albedo is holding onto Rubedo like the child he was so recently with a hand that still remembers the hot warping of viscera around it, the invasion of Rubedo's chest cavity like plunging into molten metal. That was the last time they touched before this. It's a breathtaking, wrenching memory. It locks around his lungs. He wonders if a part of him could feel these things from the other side, to relive the pain as Rubedo relives it, and if Rubedo could do the same. Maybe they've already started. They've only just begun. They've only just begun and they've missed so much.
But they've got time.
One disjointed movement flows into the next: Rubedo's arm makes contact with the back of his neck. Albedo's grip fails, momentarily hovering in empty space. He doesn't know when his subconscious spirited away so much of his Testament mantle, but the hands that fall onto Jr.'s shoulder blades begin to clutch fabric in naked fingers. Not quite crushing him, he stares into the middle distance behind Jr. for a spell and then slowly lowers his face onto his shoulder, turns it into his collar.
He can remember what Rubedo smells like. ]
Look at us.
[ The tired, wry, aching thought whispers over the link, his throat preoccupied with a thick swallow. It's an ambiguous, oblique observation, like those three words are meant to encapsulate everything they've ever been and done together over the span of their entire messy existence. ]
LAZARUS. U NEED IT.
What Rubedo doesn't realize is that he doesn't need to say anything at all. They're both inside and right next to each other—Albedo feels their union in every one of his hypothetical cells, a holy and resonant synchronicity he hasn't experienced since before they were born. Knowing what he knows now, he thinks perhaps in previous iterations of this universe they weren't even two people at all. Albedo is holding onto Rubedo like the child he was so recently with a hand that still remembers the hot warping of viscera around it, the invasion of Rubedo's chest cavity like plunging into molten metal. That was the last time they touched before this. It's a breathtaking, wrenching memory. It locks around his lungs. He wonders if a part of him could feel these things from the other side, to relive the pain as Rubedo relives it, and if Rubedo could do the same. Maybe they've already started. They've only just begun. They've only just begun and they've missed so much.
But they've got time.
One disjointed movement flows into the next: Rubedo's arm makes contact with the back of his neck. Albedo's grip fails, momentarily hovering in empty space. He doesn't know when his subconscious spirited away so much of his Testament mantle, but the hands that fall onto Jr.'s shoulder blades begin to clutch fabric in naked fingers. Not quite crushing him, he stares into the middle distance behind Jr. for a spell and then slowly lowers his face onto his shoulder, turns it into his collar.
He can remember what Rubedo smells like. ]
Look at us.
[ The tired, wry, aching thought whispers over the link, his throat preoccupied with a thick swallow. It's an ambiguous, oblique observation, like those three words are meant to encapsulate everything they've ever been and done together over the span of their entire messy existence. ]